The Singapore Sling
by legendarytobes
Summary: Set in 2018 - Chloe's son survives an explosion at the embassy in Singapore, revealing that her current husband is not his father. Truth comes out and Chloe and Clark have to learn to deal with the son they never should have had from one lonely night...
1. Chapter 1

1

"You know, Smallville," Lois said, pulling him into the coat room. "We really have to stop meeting this way?"

Clark smiled and leaned down to kiss his fiancé. He enjoyed the moments they snuck in at the halls of the Daily Planet. She worked on the top floor as Perry White's right hand and he was perpetually stuck below the twentieth floor in the municipal section. His writing was fantastic, the grammar and spelling naturally better than hers, as was his ironic talent to put a human voice and spin on his stories. Lois, however, had the advantage of amazing connections through her father who was now a four-star, a pipeline to the Superman coverage, and no other "outside" obligations. The truth was, if Perry White didn't owe Clark his life,

Clark would have been fired ten times over by now.

He blew deadlines.

Of course, when he blew his deadlines it was because Superman was in Guatemala stopping mudslides or in the Sahara desert helping bring in UNICEF famine relief. They were, to be fair, legitimate excuses if he could use them.

But he was okay with that, really he was. He was doing the important thing, being the hero that Brainiac 5 had long ago shown him he would be. If that meant the "Clark Kent" everyone knew was little more than a mask and the Planet joke, then so be it. If it meant that he played into the fiction that a woman as beautiful as Lois and as amazingly successful would never give him the time of day in public and all they had were stolen moments in coat closets and copy rooms, then that was okay too.

He was doing what he'd been told was right and he'd helped a lot of people in the seven years since he'd first flown in the suit.

Besides, he was happy, really he was. Of course, he'd be happier if he could ever make his engagement to Lois an actual marriage, even if it were to stay hidden at work. Seven years of hits and misses since everything had unfurled with Darkseid (four attempts total if one counted the first massive wedding) and they'd not yet tied the knot.

The last time, just two weeks ago, had been his fault. He'd rushed off for an emergency nuclear plant meltdown in Idaho, but they could have made it work earlier. Clark had offered a million times to do something small and fast. Not Vegas of course, but something simple for them with a Justice of the Peace and a few friends. He'd even offered more than once to fly Oliver in from Star City and Chloe from Singapore.

She always begged off.

Hence, they were trapped in a perpetual state of being engaged, one which Bart and Wally had snarked on more than once. Clark was ready to commit, and, yet, some days he felt like something was holding Lois back. He just couldn't figure out what.

"Lois," he said, pulling away albeit it reluctantly. "You know, you have a long weekend off with Labor Day and it's not that far...well to anywhere with me, but-"

She sighed and patted his cheek. "Marriage again? Look, I'm getting everything reorganized but it takes planning."

"We could do it downtown Metropolis even, right now. You landed that interview with the president not three days ago. If you missed a deadline, especially for this, you know Perry would forgive you."

Lois sighed and twisted the engagement ring on her finger. "Let's talk about this later. Also, you need to slouch more, honey. You're falling out of posture lately. It's not smart." This time she said it, patting his shoulder, and Clark had a brief flash of feeling like he was four or had the IQ of a cow.

"I...okay, Lois. I was only offering. Whenever you, Miss Lane, would like to get married, I'm at your disposal."

"Then we'll shoot for June. It is traditional after all," she said, straightening her blouse.

"Nine whole months of yet more waiting as well."

"Don't pout, sweetie, it's not cute," she said, her tone clipped. "Besides you do have a deadline about the sewer expansion running late and McConnell doesn't like you."

Clark sighed and picked his briefcase back up and started to the door. "Wouldn't make him unique."

With that he stepped out and back to his cubicle.

Clark was finishing up his article, double checking his quotes, when the news came on. They all always had CNN up on the TVs scattered throughout the office in addition to the direct line to the AP Wire. No place in the world was as plugged into the world than the Daily Planet and that, of course, was where Superman had to be.

He wasn't even paying attention at first, still trying to figure out the best way to integrate the city inspector's quote when Johnson started shaking his shoulder. Clark faked a wince as if the other man had bruised him a little with the force of his grip.

"What? I'm almost done."

"Kent? Have you even paid attention?" he asked, gesturing to the rest of the office. Clark blinked and looked past his computer screen. The whole room was silent and staring en rapt at the news crawl. There had been a fatal bombing at the American Embassy in Singapore. Fifty people, including the ambassador and his wife were dead.

In most emergencies, Clark was quicker than anyone save Wally, but right now he couldn't think. Couldn't get his feet to move even. All he had to do was get to the coat closet from which he'd come and blur out of there, be at the damage in seconds. Clark rushed as fast as a human could, his only thoughts those about Chloe.

Her husband, George Dean, was a high ranking security official for the embassy and sometimes, she and her son would visit George at his office before school started. Clark checked his watch. It was still only eight a.m. in Singapore, no reason that they'd have been there that day. None at all.

Gulping, Clark made some half-assed excuse about bad tuna for dinner and rushed to the closet. He'd just check. Surely Chloe and her family hadn't been there.

They just hadn't been.

"No you can't!" Chloe said, struggling against the grip of the police officer holding her. "I have to leave. I have to leave now."

The officer shook her head and pushed on her shoulders gently until Chloe took her seat back on the stretcher. "Ma'am, you have to be checked out by our doctors. You clearly broke your wrist. I can tell by the angle it's at. You have to stay seated."

Chloe glared at her. "My son's in the next room."

"I was aware. We separated the injured into men and women so that some could beexamined in more private areas. When you're approved, you can go get him."

"I have to see him now. I...we're Christian Scientists and we don't believe in doctors."

The guard laughed. "This isn't the United States, Mrs. Dean, and he'll get treatment as will you. We don't let people refuse it on religious grounds here."

"I know. I've been here almost a decade. I just meant that...oh god, you have to let me get to him."

"Ma'am, really, if you just let the paramedics come and set it-"

She was rusty, but she'd learned from Oliver and then from Bruce, her left cross struck the guard in the chin, knocking her off her feet. Chloe was running then, weaving through the other officers on her way down the hall, cursing herself for letting civilian life make her out of shape and slow. Sliding baseball style under the legs of the two men at the other paramedic station's entrance, Chloe turned and rolled onto her feet, rushing toward the corner where Christopher was sitting waiting his turn for the doctors.

"Mommy!" her son called, standing up and hesitating just a minute before rushing into her open left arm. "Mommy! They took daddy already! He had to go in an ambulance and everything!" He sniffled when he said it. "Daddy was talking and everything but the doctors said he had a kincussion and that they needed to take him. Mommy, I want to go see him."

Chloe pulled away and stared down at him. "Christopher, baby, did the doctor's look at you?"

He frowned, "Why?"

She felt her heart speed up but forced herself to keep a level voice. No need to scare her son even more in the middle of this chaos. "Did they look at you?"

"I feel fine."

"That's not the question, Christopher Colin. Did they look at you?"

"They tried," he said, starting to tear up.

Before she could ask him what he meant by "try," three of the remaining embassy guards approached her. They all towered over her and would have put Clark or Bruce to shame in the broad shoulder department. "Ma'am, we'd like you and your son to come with us."

She rolled her eyes. First the city officials and now the embassy soldiers. Saying "ma'am" didn't make being manhandled after the introduction any better. "Why? He saw the doctor and he apparently got a clean bill of health."

The lead guard sighed. George was head of security detail and she usually met his closest coworkers, the men and women who masterminded the security for the ambassador. She didn't keep track of the grunts but, after a few moments of concentration, recalled the most decorated officer's name. Bruno sighed again and reached for Christoper. "Chloe, I'm sorry, it's orders."

"Says who? The ambassador's hurt."

"He's dead," Bruno continued, unfazed when she slapped his hand. "These orders are-"

"You say 'classified' and I swear I'll call down a wrath on you like you've never seen," she hissed, struggling when the other two guards grabbed her and pulled her arms behind her. Chloe howled in pain over the hand straining her right wrist and cursed when Bruno picked up her screaming son. "Let him go."

"Chloe, really, I like you. I like George and I hope he improves, but I have to do this," Bruno said, not making eye contact with her and turning to take Christopher to God knew where.

"If someone touches him, I swear to God, they'll be sorry!" she shouted, fighting for all she was worth but they had the size and leverage on her. Suddenly, she wasn't struggling against anything anymore. Looking behind her, Chloe noticed that the guards were passed out in a heap on the floor. "Oh thank God," she said, turning around and flinging herself into Clark's arms. "You didn't have to wait to the last minute, you know."

Clark didn't acknowledge that old callback. He really couldn't. Instead, he turned to Bruno and shook his head. "I believe she wants her son back."

"I-"

"Bruno is it?"

"Yes...yes sir," he said, gulping at Clark. Polite or not, Chloe was glad that Bruno was nervous staring up at Superman. "I had orders."

"But you don't want to do them. Give me the boy, please. I understand you're just trying to do your job. Tell them I overpowered you. Obviously they'll believe it."

Bruno looked back at Chloe and down at Christopher who was still shrieking. "Alright, you have ten seconds before I call back up." With that he released her son.

Clark nodded and swept them both up in his grasp. "You can do it in five."  
>With that they were gone.<p>

When Chloe could process her surroundings again, she was standing in Christopher's room, staring up at the assorted nebulae on his ceiling. Her son was sitting in his rocking chair, his arms wrapped around the bows and arrows Uncle Oliver had given him for his birthday and that he tended to cling to as a talisman when upset.

Letting out a deep breath, Chloe turned and hugged Clark once again. "Thank you." She tried to ignore the feelings being in his arms brought up and the memories. She'd never been on his radar and, the one time she had truly been, it was only an aspect of Clark and Lois having been torn asunder by a fight. Once they'd reconciled, she'd been demoted back to best buddy Chloe.

Clark nodded and sat down next to her on the bed, his cape spreading out on the comforter behind them though, oddly, not looking out of place in a room that was half decorated with vintage Warrior Angel paraphernalia and the other with with the merchandise bearing Clark's own emblem. (It wasn't officially endorsed, but it also wasn't like Clark could sue for the rights either.) "No problem," he said, and then looked at Christopher. "Are you alright, buddy?"

Her son sniffled and clutched his bow even more tightly. "Uh-huh. I want to go see daddy now."

Clark nodded. "I need to talk to your mom first. Can you stay here? We'll be in her office, and if anything makes you scared, just yell for me, okay?"

Christopher nodded. "Okay, thank you."

Clark smiled and Chloe remembered how good he'd always been with children, all the way back with Ryan. "Great. Mrs. Dean, if you could?"

She assented, stood, and kissed her son's forehead. "Mommy will be right back okay? Don't worry Superman won't let anything happen to us." She was already following Clark up the hallway to her office before her son could answer. Shutting the door behind her, Chloe leaned against her desk, being careful not to lean on the Pulitzer she'd won three years prior for coverage of a devastating typhoon that hit Hong Kong. There were some advantages to being the top Southeast Asian correspondent for the DP. The chief among them had been separation from Clark.

Yet, here he was.

Clark didn't wait long before he started talking, and, it surprised her only mildly that he'd dropped the Superman voice with her. If she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine back to their college days. He sounded no different.

"Are you both alright?"

She sighed and held up her right arm. "I will need a doctor for that, yeah, but it's not in bad stead."

Clark squinted and nodded. "Not even compound. I'm relieved. I...do you know what happened?"

She shook her head. "We were having breakfast in the dining room and there was a concussion and the next thing I knew, I was waking up on a stretcher. Whatever it was had to have taken out half the building. George has a concussion and they took him for imaging already. My wrist is broken. Christopher-"

Clark frowned. "He doesn't have a scratch on him. Resilient little fella. Big too. I don't think I've seen him in person in three years."

"He'll be six in October," she said. "It's hard to get from Singapore to Kansas, you know that. It's impossible to have you just randomly show up because I can't explain why Aunt Lois and Uncle Clark have so many frequent flier miles."

"That's not exactly...I was being polite. I just forget how fast kids grow."

She nodded. "He liked the Legos you all sent last Christmas, the Harry Potter themed ones."

"Likes Oliver's stuff more."

"He was in a Robin Hood phase for a while, now it's all Superman and Warrior Angel, obviously."

"Irony," Clark said. "Chloe?"

"Yes?"

"Why were the remaining embassy soldiers taking him?"

"I don't know."

Clark shook his head. "I'm not twenty four anymore. I keep my ears perked. You're good but you're not that good. I can hear your heart perk up. Why did they want him?"

"I...the doctors had already looked him over before I was able to get to him."

Clark frowned. "He can't heal, can he? I know you haven't even had that ability since Brainiac. I...he didn't inherit it, did he?"

She shook her head. "I have no idea what my DNA looks like but I don't think so, no. I still can't heal, in point of fact. That's not it."

"Is George metahuman?"

Chloe blushed and looked away, wishing to God that she'd studied meditation with Bruce for longer. He could control his heartbeat, the bastard. "No, George is 100% normal, guaranteed."

"I'm running out of answers on why in the middle of a security DefCon 1, the embassy wanted a five year old."

"I-"

"Chloe, what's going on?"

She sighed and kept looking behind her shoulder, at the bookshelf and the assorted journals and diaries she kept there. "I assume either they found something interesting in a blood draw or couldn't take blood at all. If I were a betting woman, I'd bet they couldn't get the needle to pierce."

Clark furrowed his brows at her. "You said George was normal. Obviously mortal if he has a concussion and the last thing you are is invulnerable."

"Clark, George isn't his father."


	2. Chapter 2

2

Clark blinked at Chloe. He couldn't be hearing her right. Oliver loved Dinah. He'd been a playboy in the past but had gotten so much better. After Tess, he'd become a loyal boyfriend and husband, treating Lois, Chloe and then Dinah with nothing but respect and care each. Yes, Clark had always wondered about Christopher, who was as fair as Oliver was and looked nothing like George. The timing of her and George marrying and then Christopher being born four months later was suspicious, but he assumed they'd married as the right thing to do after George had gotten Chloe pregnant.

The timing...it was possible Oliver had had one last dalliance with Chloe before she'd left for Asia.

Clark swallowed and tasted something bitter in his throat. Apparently Chloe must have been doing a lot of "one last times" before she left for the Orient. "Does Dinah know?"

Chloe blinked. "Huh?"

"That he's Oliver's?"

Chloe laughed. "Christopher? Oliver's? Yeah, right, because Oliver is invulnerable and would be imminently valuable to the army. I mean, come on."

Clark blinked, realizing how stupid that had even sounded, embarrassed by how he'd focused on appearance over the obvious.. "Well he's blond too and George isn't the father then...no."  
>He stepped back and began to pace, his mind doing to the math brilliantly, faster than it probably had ever added before. "I...Christopher's six in October."<p>

"Yes."

"So about six years ago total and...Christ, Chlo, that's...it's not possible."

She arched her eyebrow at him. "Why wouldn't it be. The Kawatchee-"

Clark was churning with emotions. A ridiculous amount of hope and desire, the thought that he was actually compatible, something that he'd not hoped for since he'd gotten heat vision. At the same time, he could feel so much anger bubbling over. Anger that she'd kept this from him, that she'd lied. Chloe had taken his son a world away and, as a result, he'd missed so many milestones, barely knew Christopher beyond a few Christmases and postcards exchanged with Chloe who had become less and less consistent with her communication after moving to Singapore.

Now Clark knew why.

"He's mine." She nodded and he reached over to her chin, forcing her to face him. "Say it, Chloe."

"I...yes, he is yours. I realized it when I hit about two months and that's why I left the Star City Register and took the opening for the DP foreign correspondent. I already didn't have a reason to stay after Oliver and I got everything annulled when we realized we weren't compatible. I wasn't going to stay and be third wheel to the Oliver and Dinah destiny show. I'd done that twice over with you."

Clark didn't know how to answer that. "I...who knows?"

"Me. Oliver knows. He helped pull the strings I needed to get the position. I hadn't just applied here. I applied as a foreign correspondent with the Register, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and with the Gotham Gazette. Oliver was able to call in a favor with an old Excelsior friend and that's how I got here. I can't pretend that him helping me flee wasn't at least partially selfish. Things just got complicated."

"Complicated? Chloe you took my son and hid him in another hemisphere. What the Hell?"

"Shh, don't yell or he'll figure it out. Jesus Christ, Clark. What was I supposed to do? Stay around in Star City and raise him alone? Or maybe I was going to move into your apartment with Lois, your fucking fiance, and take the spare room. That wasn't going to be awkward."

"He's my son."

"No, we had sex, Clark. I was feeling vulnerable after the annulment of a second shitty marriage and you and Lois were 'taking a break.' Then she batted her eyelashes and took you back and I was yesterday's garbage."

"You had a responsibility to tell me."

"Did you tell Lois we slept together when you broke your engagement?"

"Of course not."

"Did you ever tell her, even now?"

"No...it wasn't when we were together though, it wasn't cheating. Wait? Did you tell her?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "No, moron, I moved to Singapore and made up a lot of transparent excuses to avoid seeing her in person or her getting a good look at her nephew. Of course she doesn't know."

"I...is this about spiting me because I am happy with her?"

She snorted. "No, actually. You're one of my best friends or you were, same difference, but Lois is practically my sister. I couldn't bear to let her know what we did. I knew it'd kill her and there was no point in complicating your fairy tale lives. I'm here, Christoper's been here, and we've been happy with George."

"Does George know?"

Chloe sighed and hunched over on herself a little. "No, he thinks he did the right thing by me and that Christopher was a preemie."

"I...there aren't words for this Chloe. You lied to everyone but Oliver as your accomplice. You cost me five years with my son and I can't even fathom how confused Christopher must be after today or what this will do to George. What the Hell were you thinking?"

"That I'd just spare you and Lois a lot of pain and embarrassment and make a life for myself with a man who actually cares about me. I was hoping Christopher wouldn't be like you."

"So he has my powers?"

She sighed. "Just the strength but of course I didn't want anyone examining him, looking too close. This is exactly why."

"I cannot believe you. I just can't. It's best if we ask him what the doctors did do. We have to figure out what we do from here and I think your time in Singapore is probably over, unless you call in a massive favor from your uncle to call off the dogs."

Chloe didn't know how she'd gotten here so soon. She realized when Christopher was three and had a tantrum that had resulted in him kicking a hole through the wall, that it couldn't stay hidden forever. Hell, if she were honest, she'd started lying to herself even that day back plotting her escape with Oliver. For three years after Christopher's birth, she'd prayed that the strength she'd developed during the pregnancy was fluke that her son wouldn't develop it.

Stupid but no less true.

Still, Chloe figured she could handle it. She'd already taught her son how to hide his strength and would teach him to deal with the speed. It wasn't perfect but she thought she could buy time for a decade until the heat vision and floating became impossible to deal with. It wasn't rational but nothing she'd done, starting with giving into Clark had been. She was trailing him down the hall now, back to their son's room, and she watched the cape flare out behind him. There was something tainted about Superman, even if it was merely an image Clark had cultivated, with a love child.

Clark wasn't turning back to look at her. In fact, Chloe wondered if he'd ever look at her again. She hadn't heard him scream like that at since everything with her Big Sister routine and their disagreements over how to handle the Kandorians.

She'd been distant from him to hide her secrets, but he was always warm with her on the phone or over email. She'd forgotten how much it hurt to deal with the cold, accusing version of her friend.

When they came back into the room, Christopher dropped his bow finally and ran back to hug her. She hissed when he gripped her right arm and he dropped it, eyes wide.

"Mommy? Did I hurt you?"

She knelt down and stroked his hair. "No baby, you didn't. You were gentle like we practiced. Mommy hurt her arm in the explosion, just like daddy hit his head."

He considered that, large green eyes staring up at her. So much trust there and she'd betrayed that too. "I'm okay."

"Yes you are."

"I got hit by some of the ceiling when it fell. It didn't hurt."

Instinctively, despite his parentage, despite the fact he was standing whole in front of her, Chloe started running her hands over him, trying to find any bruises and cuts. "Are you alright?"

Christopher nodded again. "I said it was okay. Then the doctor tried to give me a shot just in case. He said there were lots of splinters and sharp things and that I might get tett...tetti-"

"Tetanus," Clark supplied, easily slipping back into the Superman voice.

"Yeah, that but the needle did weird things."

Chloe swallowed and forced herself not to cry. Instead she cupped her son's cheek with her good hand. "Honey, what happened?"

"It bent. It wouldn't go through and then he tried more times."

"How many?" Clark asked.

"Hmm, maybe 3?"

Four total. Four bent needles. More than enough to establish her son wasn't normal. "Okay, that's important to know and then what happened?"

"Then he said 'just a minute,' and then you found me and then there were the guards and Superman and what's wrong, mommy?"

She took a few minutes to find her voice. "I...you know how you're very strong?"

Christopher didn't say anything but looked at Clark. "No."

Chloe smiled. She'd raised such a smart boy. "It's okay, Christopher, Superman's my friend. He won't tell anybody anything, I promise."

"Mommy-"

She kissed his cheek. "It's alright."

"Then yeah."

"Well now your skin's very strong too. You're not going to get cuts anymore."

"So no more Dr. Fong?"

Clark quirked his head at Chloe, clearly confused on how she'd allowed doctor's appointments. "No he's a special doctor, the good kind, not like the other ones. You're just a very strong boy."

"Okay...I...okay," he said, shaking his head a little. "Mommy?"

"Yes?"

"When can we see daddy?"

"I'm working on that, baby, I am."

"Lois, yes, they were visiting George at the time," Clark said, checking his watch. Was it noon here already? Christ that was just at 11:00 PM for Metropolis. "No, it's fine. No, they weren't hurt except for George is in observation for a concussion, getting MRIs. They were very lucky, yes. I...no, I'm going to be here one more day until they release George and, no, I mean...you don't have to have Diana bring you. Actually, it's probably best if you don't. I...yes, I'll talk to you later. Yes, I have my glasses with me and won't be too normal. No...yes...gotcha, sure." He said, trying to keep up with his fiancé's list of rapid-fire orders. "Alright, agreed. Love yo-" He said, cut off by her clicking off the phone before he could say "too."

Sighing, he clicked the cellphone off.

"She's not coming here is she?"

"She's worried about your family, Chloe," he replied, slipping an old Crows t-shirt over his head. Chloe kept several spare "Clark Kent" outfits for him if he ever had to drop by unannounced. He rarely had but old habits and security protocol were hard to break. "I can't stay for very long or she'll come herself, probably beg Wonder Woman or the Manhunter into dropping her off here."

Chloe nodded. "I know. I...we need to drop Christopher off at Dr. Fong's first, and we can both go to see George."

Clark frowned. "Who is that? I know you. You're not dumb enough to send him to a normal pediatrician."

"Of course not," she said, handing him a spare red jacket. Where she'd even found one of those was a mystery. He'd donated the lot of them to the Goodwill when he'd sold the farm. At least he thought he had. His old red jacket was comfortable when he slipped it on and he almost forgot why he'd stopped wearing it. He was about to head out the door of Chloe's bedroom when she shoved a spare pair of Drew Carey style glasses into his palm. "Ahem."

Clark sighed and looked down at the glasses. He remembered now. He couldn't wear blue and red in civvies. He couldn't confuse "Clark Kent" and "Superman." Rolling his eyes, he shoved the glasses on his face. "I hate these things."

"Weren't they your idea?" she asked as they headed to the living room. Christopher was waiting there so they could walk the several blocks to Dr. Fong's before she and Clark took the subway uptown to the hospital.

"Yes, once," he said, not sure how to explain he'd had a change of heart about the time he'd first met Jaime Reyes and Booster Gold. "I still don't have to like them."

"They don't do you any favors. If you were going to wear glasses, I don't see why you don't reuse the ones from high school."

"I never thought of that."

Chloe sighed. "I don't suppose you kept that in the purge of all things Smallvillian."

"The purge?" he asked, as they stepped into the living room.

"Yeah, everything from before 2011 must vanish," she snarked, her demeanor brightening for her...their son. "Baby, you ready?"

"Mommy, I wanna go with you."

She nodded and took his hand. "I know you do, but I think it's better if Dr. Fong looks after you for a bit."

"In case some of the soldiers came to see daddy too," she replied.

"Why is that bad? They all know him!"

She sighed and Clark could tell she was trying to come up with another lie. She was good at that. He trained her in it long, long ago back in just high school. "Right now they know you're special and that might not be a good thing. Let me just check with daddy to see if things are okay and then we'll come get you from Dr. Fong's."

Christopher bit his lip in a gesture that was pure Chloe and nodded. "Okay but I want to see daddy soon." Then, as if he'd finally noticed Clark, he quirked his head at him. It was also so very Chloe of him. Clark was having a hard time seeing any of himself in his son and, if it weren't for Christopher's abilities causing trouble, never would have believed it. "When did Uncle Clark get here?"

"I got sent out by the Planet to help cover the embassy story," he lied.

"It happened four hours ago," and the scrutiny brought him back to eighth grade. Chloe Sullivan, sorry Dean's son was no fool.

"Fast plane," Clark lied.

Chloe shook her head. "Once more with feeling there, Clark?"

Christopher mirrored his mother's movement and walked over to him. He pulled on Clark's jacket sleeve until Clark knelt to his level. Grinning, Christopher tore off his glasses. "I knew it! Just like in the comics!"

Clark blinked and grabbed his glasses back. "Huh?"

Chloe blushed. "I..."

Christopher laughed. "You've never seen them? Mom has them."

"I know that there's a lot of unauthorized cr...stuff out there about me," he asked, amending his statement when he remembered Christopher was in the room. "But I know there are no comics about me that actually mention, you know, real me."

Chloe smirked at the contradictions in his statement. "It's something I made for him. I'm not a good drawer, I admit it, but I just thought...I dunno, they're silly but we have them for when it's just bedtime with us. I have them locked up in a place...I keep them between us is all you need to know."

"Chlo-"

"Superman," she said, winking. "Look let's get a move on. Daylight's burning."

Dr. Fong, it turned out, was barely taller than Chloe. A wizened man with a long beard and even longer mustaches, the doctor smiled when he took Clark's hand. "A pleasure, Superman."

Instinctively, Clark looked around the exam room, even opening up his hearing to make sure there were no bugs or cameras. "Excuse me."

Dr. Fong settled the wire rim spectacles up on his nose. "Oliver Queen located me here. I specialize in treating metahumans and in being discrete about it and have for decades. As you've learned by now, Smallville is hardly a unique town."

"Yeah," Clark said, admitting that there were more people with abilities out there than even he could have imagined.

"He knew Chloe'd need good care and privacy with Christopher and I've done that. He's not my only special patient but perhaps he's still the most exceptional."

Clark sighed. Christopher was in the lobby, playing on the indoor slide in the pediatric waiting room. "I feel at a loss here."

"Realizing you're a father for the first time and that he's already five would be daunting," the doctor replied.

"No," Clark replied shortly. "I don't usually deal with people who know me and certainly not one's I haven't told myself."

Dr. Fong nodded. "If it makes you feel any better, I have no idea what your alias is. I know Oliver's nighttime hobby and of Ms. Lance's since she's come here for doctor's care before. However, Superman, one would have to be a fool to see you here, in this office, hovering over Christopher and not know who you are. Besides, if one might be subjective, he has your eyes."

Clark shrugged. "I think he looks like Chloe, myself. However, if anything happens to him while we're at the hospital-"

"I don't hurt my patients. He'll be upstairs in my apartment, safe as houses." The doctor smiled and suddenly Clark could feel energy crackling all around him. It was then he noticed that the doctor's eyes were glowing a fluorescent magenta. "Like I said, more of us out there than you realize. It'd be my honor to look after him."

"I-"

"Thanks, Liu," Chloe replied, dragging him out the door.

George was lying in a temporary bed in the corner of the emergency room, his head wrapped in gauze. He looked like Clark, Chloe couldn't deny that. It had probably been what had attracted her to him. He was tall, dark and very handsome and, not surprisingly, looked amazing in a uniform. Chloe had a type, really she did. Jimmy had been a bit of an aberration, but she understood now why she'd tried to tell herself she loved him. He was the geeky part that she'd always loved about Clark growing up. Davis was a no brainer, how similar he'd been to Clark. Oliver was different at least with respect to being fair and really only mortal, but that hadn't lasted, had it?

Still, standing there in the corner of the room, with Clark behind her and George lying before them, one would easily mistake Clark and George for brothers. God she was so fucking transparent.

"Chloe, thank God!" he said, still remaining still. "I was so worried. Where's Christopher?"

The look of fear and apprehension on his face stabbed right through her. George loved Christopher as much as any father had ever loved a son and she'd always hoped that by the time Christopher's parentage came out that it'd be too late to make much of a difference. It always would, of course, but if she could have maintained until Christopher was fifteen or sixteen, things might have worked better. Then George could always say he had had the childhood, and Christopher would never think of anyone else as his father.

It was always going to be a clusterfuck but this was the least pretty of her options.

"He's fine," Clark said when she failed to answer. "He doesn't have a scratch on him and he's at Dr. Fong's waiting for you and Chloe to get back to him."

George frowned. "Clark? I didn't know you were visiting?"

Clark fidgeted with his glasses but Chloe noticed he'd dropped the high octave whine he usually had and was standing as confidently as he ever had. She approved. Why Clark had to pretend to be a complete loser all the time, why he'd do that to himself, she really didn't understand. It seemed unnatural and stifling.

"I am. I was in Shanghai, covering something and had Lois call in a favor to Oliver to get me here as soon as was possible once the AP wire picked up the story. Chloe asked me to come with her to get you."

"Good, that's good. I was so worried."

Chloe nodded and hugged him, part of her feeling sick when he kissed her cheek. She really was a horrible person for doing this to him, using him like this. "We're fine. Well, Dr. Fong had to set my cast first. I cracked my ulna, but nothing happened to Christopher."

And nothing physically had and probably wouldn't ever considering they were thousands upon thousands of miles from Lex's infamous Kryptonite stash.

"Why is he with Dr. Fong, then?" George asked warily.

"George, Christopher's not hurt but there are things we do need to talk about," she said, feeling Clark looming over her. "But first what did the doctors say?"

"No hemorrhaging. No indication of subdural hematoma. I...is it true?"

Chloe blinked. There was no way he had any idea that something was different about Christopher. He'd been isolated in the ER for nearly six hours. "What's true?"

"The ambassador and his wife. They're dead aren't they? I heard it but I didn't want to believe it."

"I'm sorry," Clark said. "It's been verified."

George swore and shook his head. "Then I failed. I don't even...oh Chloe, I don't know what's going to happen now. I might be court marshaled for missing something. I don't even...fuck Gerard didn't do anything to deserve this."

Chloe swallowed, thinking about the ambassador who'd been nothing but jovial and kind to her. "No, he didn't. It's not your fault."

"I was head of security. I'd say I fucked up a lot, Chloe."

"Sometimes things surprise you, like Pearl Harbor," she floundered.

"Bad example. They still interview the 'responsible' party's grandchildren about him being a fuck up. We can't move. You're posted here. I just...all those people. I can't believe I did this to them. I can't believe that...I can't believe at all. This has to be the worst day of my life."

Chloe swallowed and stole a glance at Clark. It was about to get a whole lot worse. She was about to say something funny, something to try and dissipate the tension when she really noticed Clark, the way his head was quirked and his eyes slightly glazed over. Most people just assumed Clark had a touch of ADD, was easily distracted. To be fair, he was, but always by hearing things humans couldn't. "Clark what is it?"

He looked back at her, focusing again. "We have to go now." Then he turned to George. "Are you cleared?"

"Yeah...just been waiting for Chloe to come. I'm pretty dizzy so walking sucks but I signed all my paperwork."

"Good, we need to move," Clark said, helping George to his feet and bracing one arm under the other man's shoulders. Chloe trotted up behind them as Clark started half dragging George to the stairway door.

Her husband was struggling against him. "Wait, stop, the elevator's the other way."

"We're not taking the elevator," Clark replied, forcing open the door. "Look I'll support you all the way down. I understand that you're dizzy, I do, but we have to get out of here." He said, as he started down the stairs. Chloe followed behind them and shut the door after her.

"Clark?"

"There are people coming," he answered as they made their way down the first set of stairs. They were on the fourth floor, three to go.

George was flailing but it didn't really matter what he wanted at this point. Clark wasn't letting him go. "Chloe! Clark! Just stop! I'd like someone to explain to me what the Hell is going on. Why are we suddenly acting like a Tom Clancy novel? People come up through the elevator all the time."

Clark kept moving but no faster than a human could have. "Be quiet. I...some of the soldiers from the embassy wanted to take Christopher. I don't know where. I know the why, and that's why he's not with us or still at your home. They can't have him."

"Soldiers? What are you even talking about? Let me stop and catch my breath!" George demanded, yanking at Clark's arms for all the good it did him.

"You can catch your breath-" Chloe started, stopping and shushing herself instantly when the door two flights above them opened. "Faster," she hissed as they surged down the stairs. They made it to the exit out to the parking lot and her hand was on the push bar when Clark stopped her.

"I...shit."

In his lack of concentration, Clark's grip loosened enough for George to break away from him. "No, wait. Now we're going to answer my questions."

Chloe didn't even bother to turn around but instead pressed Clark. "What do you mean?"

"We're surrounded."

She rolled her eyes. "You're supposed to be smarter than that."

"I was and this was clear but I don't do my best work with people screaming in my ears."

Chloe nodded and looked up the stairwell, there were at least six armed soldiers running down it who had spotted them by now and who were rounding the final flight. To her horror, she felt the bar she clutched move out from under her grip. Someone was coming in.

"I don't suppose this is going to be the janitor?" she said.

"No," Clark replied, nudging her behind him and, despite herself, Chloe grabbed his hand as she looked around him as the door opened.

The general who stepped through it wasn't high ranking, only a one star, nowhere near the clearance of her uncle, but military was military. Besides, General Alan Flynn had been the bane of her family's existence for years. He was the head of military security of the embassy and had clashed often and vocally with George, the head of the secret service. Dealing with him over her son just added insult to injury.

"Chloe, George, imagine meeting you here," Flynn said, nodding to his own dozen soldiers, all of them joining the men from the stairs in fanning around them.

"What the Hell is going on?" George asked. "Flynn what are you even doing here when half the embassy is gone?"

Flynn nodded, "A pity that. I guess all those arguments we had over how much security was too intrusive has gotten an unequivocal answer. I was right and you were too lax."

Chloe wanted to surge forward and claw Flynn's eyes out. She settled for glaring back at him. "This is really not the time for that."

Flynn nodded. "I suppose not, but this tragedy has given us something much more interesting, hasn't it?"

"Flynn, I need to go home. I need to get a clean suit on and go back to ground zero and do my damn job. I don't have time for you to ambush me in an 'I told you so' contest," her husband said.

The general nodded. "You really don't know, do you, George?"

"Know what? I'm incredibly confused."

Chloe tensed and was grateful when Clark squeezed her hand to calm her. "We want to leave," she said.

"I suppose that you would," Flynn said, giving a nod. She struggled as several men grabbed her but she wasn't what she'd once been with the League and three large men on her she couldn't buck off.

Clark let a group of men swarm over and restrain him as well, feigning a struggle but not putting up half the fight that George actually was. She understood that and didn't begrudge him for it. The last thing any of them needed was for Clark to get caught, especially when Christopher was safe in hiding. If they had to be taken in for a bit before they could plan escape, then so be it.

George was almost more angry than he was confused. "Let me go. Flynn, what is this? Are you charging treason? I didn't learn about the bombing...I admit it shocked me, I do, but I certainly didn't let it happen or help someone plan it."

Flynn laughed. "Chloe, all this time and you never even told your husband? I'm shocked."

"Told me what?" George asked.

Flynn stopped laughing but couldn't keep the smirk off his face. "Christopher's not your son. Now take them."


	3. Chapter 3

3

"I don't understand," George said, pulling ineffectually at his handcuffs.

They were all three seated at a long stainless steel table, hands cuffed in front of them. The room they were housed in was barely that, more like a ten by ten concrete box with no light or windows save the flickering fluorescent ones overhead. Two large soldiers stood by the one door, each fully armed. Flynn sat on the other side of the table with a portable DVD player in front of him.

"Oh I want to help you understand. I can't imagine you or Mr. Kent, was it?"

Clark nodded and forced himself into a stuttering mess. "Kent...yeah, Clark Kent...with a K. I was in Shanghai on assignment for the Daily Planet and I heard and had to get over here as soon as I could."

"Because you and Mrs. Dean are colleagues, how touching," Flynn said.

Clark swallowed and didn't give the other man eye contact. Superman made eye contact, commanded it. Clark Kent let everyone think he was too afraid to. "My fiance is Chloe's cousin and we all grew up together in Smallville, I mean, not completely grew up but we did finish out high school and that was like fifteen years ago and so I guess grew up works and-"

"I get your inane point, but isn't that funny."

"I don't think anything's funny today, sir," Clark said.

"But Lois Lane's your fiancé, right?"

"Yes, yes sir."

"Funny, everyone thinks she's Superman's girlfriend. Can't say I've even heard of you in passing."

"We don't make it out to Singapore very often."

"Superman certainly gets around then doesn't he, Chloe?" Flynn said, turning to her. "Working his way through two cousins, kinky."

Clark wanted to tear through the handcuffs terribly. Chloe didn't deserve to be talked to like a whore. "Stop, what does any of that have to do with us and why we're here and, with all due respect sir, my fiance loves me."

Flynn nodded. "She may but I can't imagine with all those long hours and trysts on a roof top that she doesn't love someone else more. Or lust, all the same."

"Flynn, stop," George said, holding up his arms. "Why are we being held. None of us did anything. For fuck's sake, Clark just got off a plane."

"I'm glad you asked," Flynn said. "Dramatic pauses over. Christopher's not your son, George. He's Superman's."

Clark had to give Chloe credit. She faked laughter without flaw by now. "Yes because that makes so much sense. He and I are on each other's speed dials, sure."

Technically she was on his. He didn't think he was on Chloe's. They hadn't talked over the phone consistently in half a decade and now Clark knew why.

"Maybe, maybe not, but imagine our surprise when the paramedics tried and failed to give your son a tetanus shot four times."

"Why fail?" George asked, and he was breathing in ragged gasps, well on his way to hyperventilating.

"Needle bent when it made contact with the skin. Every time," Flynn said, pressing play on the portable DVD player. Grainy images of the cafeteria security footage popped up. "Christopher wasn't sitting with either of you when the bomb hit, was he?"

"I think he went to get an extra thing of chocolate milk," George said.

Flynn nodded. "When we reviewed the footage we found this."

He angled the screen so that all three of them could see the footage. At first it didn't look like anything more than rubble. The dust in the air, the large chunks of ceiling and wall in a pile. Then the rubble started to move and rise. Clark knew exactly what was coming next, he'd done it himself a hundred times over. Christopher was standing up now throwing parts of the ceiling off himself like it took no effort at all, and it probably hadn't.

It took everything Clark had to fake surprise, to keep playing the role of just confused uncle. "My God."

"That's not real. It can't be," George said flatly. "Christopher doesn't have abilities."

Chloe, nestled between Clark and George at the table, closed her eyes and turned her head away. "You can't have him."

"Well we can't find him is more the operative term, Mrs. Dean. We already were interrupted by you at the embassy and half my team is at your apartment searching for him, but he's not there."

"Imagine that," she said.

"We did find a series of journals in your office. Encrypted, I'm impressed on that score, Chloe. We'll crack it eventually of course."

Clark wanted to know very badly what she'd written then. He assumed if her cipher wasn't strong enough that Flynn would be reading a lot about him too and not just about Christopher. "Chlo," Clark said, voice timid. "What...what's going on?"

"I'd like to know that too, Chloe. What he's saying can't be true. I mean you've never even met Superman."

"She seemed very tight with him when he showed up to save them both at the embassy this morning. There was hugging."

Chloe swallowed. "I was glad not to be being chased by your goon squad. I...you won't find Christopher. I'm many things, a bad secret keeper is not one of them."

George frowned between Chloe and the view screen. "No that's not...I know you got pregnant fast after we jumped into dating. I get that. I know that Christopher was born a little premature but you don't know Superman. I...Christopher's my son."

Chloe looked down at her hands and, underneath the table, Clark patted her knee with his own. "I knew I was pregnant when I left Star City. It's why I took the job in Asia. I didn't want to be even in the same continent as Metropolis, not close enough for Superman to realize it. Then you and I clicked so fast and I did like you and it'd be easier to hide Christopher when he had an 'obvious' human father. I...I'm sorry."

George looked as if he'd gone several rounds with Clark in a ring. "No. That's not...why would you use me like this?"

"I didn't, exactly," Chloe hedged. "I cared about you and then everything was so amazing together and with him. I'd never had a marriage like that before. Hell, I'd never had a marriage not get annulled before. I didn't know it could exist without the other person wanting you to change everything you were or leaving nasty facebook messages and stealing from your life savings. I...you're different."

Clark winced. He'd never really understood what had gone wrong between Oliver and Chloe. He didn't think Dinah had anything to do with it, but it was more a product of it being a marriage that alcohol had induced to start. Jimmy, well, he had no idea that weasel had been stealing Chloe blind for his drugs. It was sad he'd died, that Clark couldn't save him, but, no, Jimmy had not been a good person, not by a long shot.

"You used me and lied to my face for years. How could you?" George repeated.

Chloe hesitated, biting her lip. "I do love you, but I love Christopher more than anything. I was avoiding something like this happening, frankly, trying to spare everyone's feelings."

"I don't even know who you are."

Considering Chloe had worked for The Star City Register as "Elizabeth Chloe Cochran" and was still under the DP payroll officially under that name, had nothing on her files but an intricately created past back in San Jose, California, and that George knew nothing about "Chloe Sullivan" who had died seven years ago and been erased, that couldn't have been more true.

"I'm sorry," she said, finally looking George in the eye. "I did what I had to do."

Flynn shook his head. "Touching. You have one hour to figure out how to get Christopher to me. I'll be back then with persuasion."

"You can't do that," George said. "We haven't done anything wrong. We're all American citizens and this base is American property. We have rights. Chloe, tell him, you're the Bill of Rights expert here," George insisted.

She gave Clark a quick look and shook her head at her husband. "Those don't count under these types of circumstances."

"What type? We're talking about them torturing two reporters and an embassy official on American soil. Those are good 'this is illegal' circumstances."

Flynn nodded. "You do get it, Chloe. I forwarded the tapes directly to Washington. They want the boy. The higher ups have always wanted Superman to be more than first on the spot in natural disasters. He won't play ball politically speaking."

Of course Clark wouldn't. It was something the Fortress insisted he never do-take sides in human events. It was also League policy. They couldn't pick one country over another. They were for metahuman and alien threats, for massive natural disaster relief. They weren't chess pieces in wars. The secretary of state had approached him several times in his first year with offers and Clark had refused repeatedly, making his position clear. He'd been naive to think they had stopped fantasizing about it.

"So?" George asked. And Clark blamed the concussion for making him this obtuse.

"They want Christopher. They want to raise him to be the ultimate weapon. America's already the super power. But with an invulnerable half-alien on its side, fighting its wars, who'd ever question it again. Am I right? Oh and, of course, for bringing him in, you get off the crap assignment in a city-state no less and probably get an extra star or two on your lapels."

"Very astute," Flynn replied. "I want him. You have an hour before I bring back our specialist in interrogation."

He left the room and the guards followed. Clark activated his X-ray vision to confirm what he already suspected. The guards were now standing against the doors, joined by three others, each with an uzi.

Perfect.

Chloe didn't waste time and he'd never been more glad that she still moonlit as Watchtower for tactical advise when needed. Reaching beside her right ear, Chloe activated her commlink. "J'onn? We have a problem. We're somewhere on the U.S. base in Singapore being held. I'll explain later. I...Clark's here but he's detained too. If you and John and Diana could? Thanks, see you in sixty," Chloe said, pulling her hands back down.

George was staring wide mouthed at her. "Who are you?"

"I can't even remember," Chloe replied. "But I have friends in high places," she finished as Wonder Woman, The Martian Manhunter, and the Green Lantern broke through the walls and grabbed each of them, hurrying them away.

Walking through Watchtower was awkward. Everyone stopped and stared at her and at Christopher. Those who ranked high enough to know Clark's real identity would look at him as well. Rumor spread fast there. Chloe steeled herself and stood taller, her hand clutching Christopher's tightly. Her son was the only one among them who was excited. His eyes were widen and he shook as he took in all the wonders the gleaming satellite held. He'd always loved heroes, whether it had been Robin Hood or now was Warrior Angel and Superman. This was better for him than Disney World.

Clark and George trailed behind her, both men silent. In front of her J'onn and Diana kept walking, leading them to the bunks where Christopher could rest. Her heart thumped heavily as she walked. She didn't even understand how it had gotten this far. She had loved George, damn it. She'd used him to protect her son but any mother with a child as special and as valuable as hers would do anything to protect him. George had presented a perfect cover but he'd been so attentive and sweet over the last five plus years that she really had fallen in love with him. Now she'd crushed him. Forget Clark. Outside of him reassuring her in life and death situations, he'd probably never talk to her again. She'd cost him the formative years of his son's life. Oh Christ and Lois. She would find out about this and soon, maybe in hours if she hadn't already learned.

Chloe shook her head and gathered her son closer.

It was okay, she could be alone; she'd earned that. As long as they could find a way to protect her son, she could manage.

Clutched in Christopher's hands was a small locked case. It was the fireproof safe she used to hold the comics she'd made. George had no idea they existed and, thank God or whoever looked after fugitives, Christopher had insisted on bringing his favorite reading to Dr. Fong's. While she had to worry about her journals being decoded, she didn't have to fret about Flynn's men finding something even more incriminating.

Eventually, they came to a spare pleasant, if sparse, bedroom. Diana turned and knelt before Christopher. "You can go in there if you like. We have some things to discuss with your parents and your uncle."

"Will I be bored?"

J'onn laughed and it filled Chloe's mind, reached down to her soul. She noticed George look around in confusion for the source of "the sound. We'll send Impulse in to entertain you, don't worry. There's a television and a DVD player.

"Is there the internet?" Christopher asked and now even Diana laughed.

"You are your mother's son. Come with me and I'll get you situated until Impulse comes." With that, Diana led her son inside and shut the door. The three of them followed J'onn in silence with Chloe occasionally sending death glares at the younger League members who were gaping between her and Clark. Eventually they came to one of the myriad of conference rooms and sat down.

J'onn started into things with no preamble. Bruce is on a mission with Zatanna several dimensions over. You should be glad for such things, Chloe. I can't even imagine what you and Clark have been thinking or how you lied to all of us for so long, let alone to Lois.

Chloe didn't have a chance to respond before George was up and pacing. "You and Clark? I'm incredibly confused. What does Lois's fiance have to do with any of this?"

Clark sighed and took off his glasses. Sitting up instead of slouching and dropping his feigned stutter, he looked George in the eye. "I'm Superman."

It was much harder to argue with that, sitting in League headquarters and with Clark not acting like a spaz. George didn't speak for a long time, just looked between Clark and her, and shaking his head. "You're Superman and that makes you-"

"Christopher's biological father, yes," Clark replied.

It hurt Chloe to hear the resignation and longing in Clark's voice. She'd stolen a lot from him in whatever misguided attempt she'd made to spare herself another go-round in the "Chloe's Second Choice Olympics" and to spare Lois her relationship.

"Clark and Lois broke up for a while, J'onn. This was obviously back years ago. They weren't actively dating when we slept together and by the time I realized I was pregnant, they were back together. I never told him. No one knew but me and Oliver."

I suspected when we met Dr. Fong that you'd had help from one of us. I just assumed you and Clark both had conspired to hide the boy.

Chloe sat up rigidly. "No, J'onn. I made this mess on my own. All Clark did was have a night of weakness after Lois dumped him. I didn't think...I felt it wasn't worth ruining what they had with an illegitimate child. It wasn't good planning."

"Understatement," George huffed, still staring at Clark. "You didn't just hop by Singapore one night for a little release while she was dating me, did you? Was she really pregnant before she left the States?"

Clark couldn't even look at her as he answered. "I've only slept with Chloe once in my life. I slept with her nine weeks before she left for Singapore. If I'd known, I'd never have let her leave and, even if she had still left for Asia...I would never have someone cuckolded like this. George this has been incredibly unfair to you."

"No shit."

Clark nodded. "You're angry, I understand, believe me I do. I'm adopted."

"Also no shit."

"My father clashed a lot with my human parents. Long story, brainwashin involved, alien computers, very complex. However, the gist is my adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, and my real father didn't get along at all. I know the kind of tension there can be in a situation like this and I'd like us to...when all the chaos with Flynn has settled...I'd like for us to be more united than my fathers were. It's not good for Christopher if we aren't."

"How generous of you, Superman. I'm glad I'll be allowed to still have an audience with my son, the one I raised for five years-every cut and scrape and nightmare-while you were getting accolades half a world away."

"You can just call me Clark. It's fine, but I was trying to help."

Chloe wasn't focusing much on the rest of their strained squabble. She was feeling sick to her stomach in a way that had nothing to do with her own messes. She'd only heard Clark refer to Jor-El as his "real father" after he'd come back from training and had been so cold, that douchebag in the trench coat. She thought he'd been coming more back to himself and to his life as a Kent. Certainly, at least he'd gone back to red and blue a year later and reconciled quite a bit with Martha through her efforts with the VRA. Still, it unsettled her for Clark to be so callous about what Jonathan had done for him. It wasn't like the boy she'd known at all, including that hard winter after Jonathan's death.

Of course, the boy she'd known wouldn't have sold the farm on pain of death or reduced his visits to DC so severely or...

She'd been so busy hiding in Singapore to give them the life he deserved that she hadn't kept up with him. She'd promised Martha she would, that she'd never really leave him. Hell, she promised that to Clark her last time in the loft. Who was this man who trusted Jor-El even more than his parents, who wore a mask all day at work, and who had cut ties with everything human save for Lois.

And why hadn't she realized he'd been wearing Clark's skin for so long?

Chloe! J'onn shouted, startling her out of her worries. Did you hear us?

"I'm sorry. I just...long day J'onn. Where were we?"

George sighed. "We were trying to figure out what to do. Your uncle is four star. He works at the Pentagon now. Can't he intercede?"

Clark shook his head. "There's nothing Sam wouldn't do for his girls, but, this is over his head, I'm sure. I'd really not be shocked if this was a mission on direct orders from the president."

"Of the United States?" George asked.

"No of Wal-Mart," Chloe snarked. "Yes, the PotUS. This is clearly something the government has wanted since Clark first came out. They can't corrupt Superman and they can't force him to do things against his will, but they can indoctrinate a child."

"You mean brainwash," George added.

"Yes," she said. "I'm sure the president and secretary of defense cleared this themselves. I don't think there's anything that can be done to call it off, ever." Her voice shook a little on that last part. She'd lived in hiding before, still did to an extent, but she'd been on the run for seven months as a young woman. It was hard and lonely. It would crush a five year old.

"We can't go home because they're there. We can't step foot on American soil cause we'd be easy targets. We certainly can't live forever in the base of the JLA."

"We call it the Watchtower," Clark added offhandedly.

"Yes, that. Where exactly are we going to go, Chloe?"

"I don't know. I...that secret can't just be out there. It's why Clark's always guarded his identity so fiercely. Once people know, that's the ballgame. Christopher will always be pursued by the government as long as he lives, which, not to add insult to injury, because of his genetics is going to be a long damn time."

"How long?"

"A thousand years, maybe two," Clark said and the lack of emotion in his voice about that also scared Chloe a little.

George was apoplectic. "My basically immortal son is going to have to hide in the Watchtower for the next millennium because the government will never stop looking for him. Is that about right?"

J'onn nodded. Christopher Dean has no place in the world any longer. For this, I'm sorry. We can figure out a way for you and for your son to have a normal life. Well, as normal as possible, but you three will always have to live under an alias. Chloe, this is nothing new for you.

"What?" George asked, staring at her.

She shook it off and looked instead at J'onn. "I can start manipulating the records we'll need tomorrow, and I'm sure Batman or Arrow can arrange a new place for us to live. Frankly, I think Switzerland would be good."

"Are you serious?" George asked.

"I am. It's neutral territory, non-extraditing. If we were ever found there, the American government would have no legal way to get to us, not that we don't have to just go underground and stay hidden. We do. But we have to stay out of the United States or any U.S. controlled territories. We have to cut ties to everything this minute. Your parents, your friends, everything. As far as they know, we'll float the story you died in the explosion. It wouldn't be hard with the right hacking and a few placed stories."

"Are you even listening to yourself, Chloe? I'm not going to scare my mother and father like that, especially when I'm alive."

Clark finally spoke again. "You have a choice to make, George. It's not a fair one and we're all sorry Chloe roped you into this."

She didn't even object to the sentiment. Chloe knew it was true, and that she'd set all this in motion long ago with her lies.

"And?" George asked.

"If you love Christopher like you say you do, you have to give up life as George Dean for him. I'm sorry, truly I am, but the government will never stop looking for Christopher, George and Chloe Dean. The only way to survive is to have them die."

"You act like giving up an identity is so easy!"

"It is," Clark said, shrugging. "Ask your wife, but my point is that if you don't want to do this, alright. We'll arrange for you to be sent away from the Watchtower and go back to your life, make sure that you can't reveal information that compromises me or Christopher."

"Why does that sound ominous?"

"We'll make sure you can't slip," Clark said and Chloe shivered at the thought of Zatanna or J'onn playing with her husband's mind. "But you can either have your life back and your family and friends and what you've worked forty years for or you can have Christopher. You have a lot of choices to make. I suggest you start prioritizing." Clark stood then, his posture stiff and unnatural. "Chloe, J'onn, George, I'm going to take a rest myself before I call my fiancé when it hits 8:00 AM in Kansas." And, although he was still in that idiot red jacket she'd saved for him, she couldn't help but imagine the cape flaring out behind him as he left the room.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Chloe would rather relive the day of Clark and Lois's first not-wedding than walk into the small room that had been afforded to her and George for the night. She stood on the threshold, unable to cross, until George noticed her and nodded. Gesturing to one of the twin beds, he sat down on the other. "Come in Chloe, we need to talk."

She swallowed and took her place on the bed closest to the door. It was a battle to force herself to look him in the eyes. "Where do you want to start?"

George sighed and surprised her a little by staying calm. Perhaps all the shocks had overloaded his system. Of course, George was good in an emergency; in his line of work, he had to be. "Have you ever told me a single true thing?"

"I wasn't lying these last five years. You've been the first man in my life to treat me like more than a convenience, possession or an afterthought. I do love you for that."

He nodded, "But at first, I was convenient for you."

Chloe sighed and started to pick at the threads on the bedspread. "At first, you were what I needed to keep Christopher safe, yes. It was easier to hide his real identity with a father in the picture than me alone."

"I see."

"Then you were so good to us, especially to Christopher, and how could I not love you for it?"

"Apparently not enough to explain the lies you'd created, Chloe. I want it all now. I want the truth flat out from you. What don't I know about you still?"

She laughed, a bitter, brittle sound. "Everything."

"Chloe-"

"No, I'm serious. I...'Elizabeth Cochran' is an alias. I was born 'Chloe Anne Sullivan' in Metropolis in 1987. I moved with my dad to Smallville, Kansas in the fall of 2000 when he got a job managing the fertilizer plant that was one of the original acquisitions of LuthorCorp, back when it was all agricultural."

George was still, his face showing no reaction. "Then where did 'Chloe Sullivan' go?"

"I...it's a decade long story. I can't possibly hit all the high and low points in a single conversation. I can give you the big spots."

"Please do."

She sighed. "Clark and I have been best friends from before he ever hit his first real growth spurt. No kidding. The day I met him, he was barely taller than I was. He showed me around the middle school and his farm and we'd been friends ever since. I...if we're being honest, I fell for him the first day. He was so sweet and earnest, not at all like the types I knew in the city."

"And did you know then that he was different?"

She shook her head. "Smallville was a bizarre town, before Queen and Wayne Industries and LuthorCorp all took turns cleaning up the rocks there, they'd managed to poison the town-higher cancer rates of course-but something else."

"I don't understand."

She sighed and pulled at another thread. "The rocks were mutagens. They changed people, gave them powers. To be honest, we spent a lot of high school just trying to graduate in one piece. You name it, it happened: werewolves, fat sucking vampires, kids who could paralyze you with a touch. It went on and on."

"Werewolves?"

"Rock-induced powers, not in the traditional sense, no," she clarified, thinking of Kyla.

"Alright, I'm following, I think."

"We were on the paper with our friend Pete and then a little in our senior year when Lois had to repeat a grade that fall. I...we sort of Scoobied around a lot."

"Scoobied?"

"We investigated the weird and unusual in Smallville and brought it to light. The thing that's always been true about me, that would always be the truth about me, is that I'm a reporter. Mom reported for The Metropolis Journal and I always knew I was going to be a journalist too. I didn't know for sure Clark had powers, no, but he was always the one on the scene saving people. He'd come up with the worst excuses, but I couldn't prove he was different and it scared him so badly for me to press him. Somewhere along the way in ninth grade, I just started accepting that 'adrenaline' made him do it. Then a mutual friend of ours set Clark up."

"How?"

"She...Alicia wasn't very stable…the meteor rocks come with that. A lot of the people changed by them are mentally ill," she said, taking a few deep breaths, trapped thinking about her mother before she could continue. "Alicia was one of them, but she wanted people to know about Clark so he'd be out like she was. I...she set up this car accident with us in it and teleported us out last minute. Clark showed up and caught a car, an honest to God car in front of me and then I knew for a fact what I'd always suspected was true."

"Then you what? Became his sidekick?"

"I didn't tell him for the longest time. I wanted him to come to me with it. After everything with Alicia...she was killed in a hate crime of a sort...it hit me how hard it had to have been for him. People really hated her for what she could do, for what she had done, and I think I realized how scared he was of people hating him too or worse."

"Like the way Flynn wants Christopher," George supplied.

"Yes. So I let him tell me in his own time. I don't think he was ever going to, if you want to know the truth, but, long story short, I sort of got dragged to the tundra the first time he ever activated the Fortress of Solitude."

"The what of what?"

"It's not as threatening as it sounds," she hedged, having no idea to explain its apparent ability to block out the sun should it be programmed to. "It's an archive of knowledge from Krypton. Clark found a way to build they day we graduated from high school but I got beamed there with him and he couldn't lie anymore. I...we made a very good team and his mission sort of became mine. I didn't have an ability; I was just a gifted hacker and researcher, sort of the brains for his muscle. Not that Clark's not smart. It's more that he works better bouncing ideas off of someone else, like a sounding board."

"And you had to 'die' because?" George asked patiently.

"This is where it gets complicated."

"Gets?"

"Tangled," she corrected. "I had a latent meteor rock infection. I used to be able to heal the dead. I saved Lois after she'd been stabbed once. Lex Luthor too after a near fatal shooting. It burned itself out basically by the time I was 21. I really only had the ability for little over a year. It was enough time for the wrong types of people to notice me, to have been taken and experimented on for over a month. For a while, I was pretty fucking traumatized, quit journalism, tried to be counselor for the meteor infected who still had active abilities. I was terrible at it by the way. It wasn't me. It's when I started losing myself a lot. It's when a lot of things started falling apart."

He frowned and glanced at the door, as if searching something out. "Your work life or your personal one?"

"Both," she said, refusing to acknowledge that she was crying. "I can't even begin to explain this to you but I'll try. Once upon a time, Doomsday wasn't just a monster but was tied to a human being, a total Jekyll and Hyde deal. He stalked me, became infatuated with me, and none of us knew at the time it was Doomsday, least of all his human side Davis. I was confused and adrift and got comfortable with him as friends and he wanted more to it and it just got so out of control. I was getting married to Henry Olsen, well I called him Jimmy. However, that year I was getting married to him, and...I just...it was a mess. Davis wasn't capable of love, but he was obsessed. Details left out. He killed Henry and Henry managed to kill Davis and Clark blamed himself for the whole mess because he didn't eliminate Davis when he had the chance because even if Davis was tied to Doomsday, he was human, and Clark doesn't take lives. He can't."

"So Doomsday, for lack of better terms, killed your first husband?"

She nodded. "Henry worked at the DP with Clark and Lois, had worked there with me when I still was an employee. He was Clark's friend and Clark took it hard. I took it worse because I blamed myself too and it was my fault. I could have made so many different choices. I could have stopped Davis before it got too far, I know I could have. I...that's when everything changed between Clark and me, inside of me, with him. I don't think either of us have really been ourselves since."

"Okay, following," George said.

"I got obsessed with the Justice League. It had disbanded after everything with Doomsday, so I started building it back up. I created the first real base for it in Metropolis, in an actual Watchtower. The satellite's named for it. But I did it so wrong. I didn't have a life or a balance or an anything. It was me and monitoring the city with this computer and satellite system that could hack anything sixteen or eighteen hours a day. I didn't sleep; I lost a bunch of weight because I wasn't eating. I lived in the city but barely spoke to Lois and Clark and I were talking, nominally. When he needed help with his mission, I gave, but we weren't friends anymore. We couldn't trust each other. I started doing extremely unethical things-no one died or got hurt-but they weren't the right way to run Watchtower either. I eventually even shut the whole Tower down and begged Clark to let me quit."

"Did he?"

"He talked me back into it for running recon in a battle with Zod, actually, but Clark's always had that way with me. He'd say that he needed me and I'd crawl through lava, do anything no matter what it cost me."

"You said Clark was different?"

"The Blur, obviously that was who he was before Superman came around, same symbol, same M.O. For a while he was good at it, and then after Henry was murdered, he changed. He was cold and hollow and emotionless. He'd gotten training at the Fortress and cut himself off from his humanity. When he came back later that summer, he wasn't the boy I'd known at all except in one way."

"Which was?"

Chloe laughed again, really braying was more like it. "He was in love with a beautiful girl with long brown hair. He has a type, you know. The unattainable and the inhumanly gorgeous. When we were in high school and college, he'd been in love with Lana Lang and everything revolved around her."

George frowned. "Like the gossip from Linda Lake?"

She nodded. "It was probably more sordid than she got if you want to know the truth. That didn't last for a lot of reasons, but he rebounded and I honestly don't know when. He left the Watchtower after Henry's funeral swearing humanity made him weak and when he came back to the city Lois was all he would think about besides patrolling." She laughed again. "He'd pole vaulted from Lana to Lois and hadn't spared me a glance. It was so hard that year and I think it drove my seclusion more if you want to know the truth. If I even left the tower, tried to be social, I'd see them together. Even at 'work,' he'd hem and haw and worry over telling Lois his secret when she was obviously so hot for the Blur she'd have loved him more for revealing it. It burned."

"Chloe-"

"It burned that I wasn't good enough and I tried to date again, to find solace at first with no strings sex with Oliver and then he was pressuring me for more, talking about 'I love yous' and gifts and just everything in between. I think people say shit like that when the world is ending, Lord knows he did with Zod. I'd be lying to myself even if I didn't admit that half of why I faked my death was that my life as 'Chloe Sullivan' wasn't worth living."

"What was the other half?"

"I was told that something bad was coming for the League and that one of us had to go underground, stay apart from it, because when the time came we couldn't all be together. I faked my death and erased every record there'd ever been of 'Chloe Sullivan' and hid for seven months and when the VRA backers in the military took the others, Clark included, I swooped in and saved them. I just didn't have the energy to go back to life at the Watchtower, once I'd been really freed from it, to lose myself again, to become someone so Machiavellian and cold. So I left Smallville and tried to work for a while at The Star City Register. I even was married for a few months to Oliver Queen. It started as a drunken mistake at a bachelor party. We tried to make it work, but he married whom he thought was good old Watchtower and couldn't handle the reporter side of me I was re-embracing and I, well, I'd faked my own death to stop being so hot and heavy with him. It wasn't ideal."

"Where the Hell does Clark being Christopher's father even come into this between Henry, Davis and Oliver and Lois on the other side?" George asked, his patience wearing thin.

"Everything I've ever done, since I was thirteen years old, has been because of him. Whether I did it to spite him or to curry favor or even to try escaping him, it's always been about Clark and I think it's as pathetic as you do, trust me, but I can't stop. God knows I've tried. I 'killed' myself to escape it. I moved across the planet. I can't make what I feel stop and probably never will. I...leaving Smallville after I saved the Justice League was because of Clark, oh God was it ever. I could have been a reporter at the Planet. Tess would have hired me; we were friends of a sort."

"But you didn't want to be."

She was crying full out now, feeling like she was sixteen again and walking into Clark's loft the night of Lex and Helen's rehearsal dinner. "I was never going to sign up again for a life where I had to watch him be happy with someone else and smile and encourage and act like a door mat. I did that for eight fucking years with Lana. Then I did it for almost a year with my own cousin who'd never given Clark the goddamn time of day before she found out he was the Blur. I mean, there was a bit of something there around the time of my wedding to Jimmy or Henry, whoever, but I think it was more Lois realizing she wasn't the one ahead in the getting married department even though she was older than I. I mean, she jumped so fast into fangirling the RBB and then was obsessed with The Blur. Sycophantly so."

She stopped and took long, deep gulps of air. George watched and waited for her to calm but made no move to comfort her. She couldn't blame him.

"Whenever you can," he said.

She nodded and, tears streaming down her face, began again. "I couldn't be at the DP. I couldn't. She was already top reporter there, everything I'd wanted, and I have to start back with an alias and a new look in the fucking basement on the helpline. I'd have to work and try and readjust to a career I'd lost, all while she was getting assignments to see the mayor. I'd have to watch them at lunch across the cafeteria, pretend not to notice them coming rumpled out of closets. I couldn't do it. I'm only human, lost powers or not."

"So you buried 'Chloe Sullivan' and her mission as field operator at Watchtower and tried to make do with Oliver and The Star City Register ."

"Yes, and even after Oliver and I called it mutually off, even after I was used to being single again, I could have made it there. I was doing well at the Register. I had my own slot in the foreign affairs section and was working my way into a weekly column, I know I was."

"Then what happened?"

"Lois broke up with Clark. They'd tried to get married the day Superman came out, but everything with Darkseid and the planet heading toward Earth...obviously was not the day to get married, you know?"

"I can see how that'd complicate things."

"So they set it aside for about a year, just take a year to get used to life engaged in the city and the new demands 'Superman' was putting on their time and on their schedule."

"She dumped him because he was never around?" George asked and it was a good enough guess.  
>He'd been a decorated lieutenant for the Gotham City P.D. before going into foreign service, starting at the Hong Kong embassy before making his way to Singapore. Chloe knew her husband had had tons of friends get divorced because the rigors of the cop lifestyle. It was something she half-hoped he'd understand, that hiding Christopher had been more than even sparing feelings, that it had been also about her mission, about protecting Clark. She'd been the go-to girl for the JLA for so long, for her best friend for so long, and, even now, there were secrets that weren't hers to tell.<br>She nodded. "I…it's hard. People live for the job. The League's not different from the Gotham P.D., George. You know that. For the League it's even worse. There's no one but us. If there's an invasion or a natural disaster? No one is really capable of dealing with it but us."  
>"People like the Joker or Clayface or whoever too?"<p>

"Yes," she said, rocking back and forth on her heels. "There's this group of amazing people I was loyal to first, you know? Their mission has always been my mission, since I was just in college. I don't know how not to be the job , even if I mostly just consult."

"So you were being a noble cuckold?" he asked, tone bitter.

Ouch.

"I was doing the best for a son with a heritage no one could ever know, and for my best friends whose secrets I promised to keep. Like I said, it's the price of being a hero. It's driven a lot of people from me. I guess you're the latest. It almost ended Clark and Lois, even after they were this close to being married."

"So your cousin had Superman, and she dumped him out of the blue?" George asked, blinking back in confusion.

She laughed. "Clark's not as impressive as you'd think, but I guess you'd have to have known him twenty years to get that."

"Seems like it."

"StilI," Chloe continued, "I honestly don't know what Lois was thinking. She kicked him out of the apartment and he had no place to go but to my spare bedroom. Whatever mood swing she was in, it only lasted two weeks and all was well again in Lois and Clark's Dreamland."

"But he was staying with you and-"

Chloe nodded and swiped at her eyes. "I'm only human, right? He might not be, technically, but I'm not infallible. Hell, neither is he. He's no saint; don't let the cape fool you. I tried so hard the first week but I had come off of three years of romantic upheaval between two annulled marriages and a psychotic alien stalker and he was so upset and he saw me. God, I know that just once he finally saw me as not just best buddy Chloe and I caved. I knew it was a mistake the minute I did it. I knew things like that don't happen to me. And I was right because he was back in her bed the moment she beckoned for him."

"Jesus."

"Yeah, and I was okay with that. I made the mistake. I forgot the first rule of my relationship with him, which is he doesn't love me like that. I just let myself believe something that wasn't real. I was going to be okay, really. I had my day job at the Register and by night I had a protege of sorts I was training for the League."

"You're serious?"

Chloe nodded. "Yeah, she eventually moved to Gotham after I left the States. She changed costumes and is acting as Batgirl currently but she's a phenomenal hacker, far better than I ever could be."

"Whoa."

"Yeah, but I got pregnant and the side effects set in and I couldn't even lie or hope it was somehow Oliver's, which would have been an impossible mathematical stretch anyway. By the time I was eight weeks in, I was exhibiting super strength."

"So you ran?"

She nodded. "I had Oliver call in a favor at the DP and was in Singapore within seventy-hours of realizing I was carrying Clark's child. You know the rest."

"I...you said you were two months along when we got married."

She shook her head. "I was five, maybe twenty-two weeks, but I wasn't showing much yet. I'd already been underweight from years of living on coffee and stress. My friends in Metropolis would have noticed the weight gain. You didn't know the difference."

"And I was your dupe. The next way in the line of Henry and Oliver for you to get away from Clark Kent?"

"At first. I couldn't let them know. Clark and Lois...they were happy and they didn't deserve my mess. Lois didn't deserve what I'd done, and I needed a way to hide Christopher not just from them but from men like Flynn."

"Like I said, I was convenient."

Chloe sighed heavily, and rubbed her nose. "Yes, at first you were. I didn't really expect to like you as much as I do. I...in a world where there'd never been a Clark in my life, you're exactly the man I could have loved the way you deserve. I do love you; I am fond of you."

"I'm just not him?"

"You weren't worth the secret. I've carried a large burden on my shoulders since I was eighteen years old and everything that falls to Hell around me is the price I pay for the honor."

"You sound like a groupie."

"I'm not, but someone has to protect him. Lois pays her prices. Lord knows she's an abduction magnet for every whacko with a grudge against Superman. Clark's human parents paid it like crazy, especially his father. Lana. Me. We all pay the price for knowing him. The loneliness is mine and, after I was fired from the Planet in college, I thought it would be my fucking career too. For a while I had you and Christopher and then I had The DP again and my Pulitzer. It was more than I'd hoped for."

"Not what you wanted."

"I don't get what I want. He doesn't love me. He can't love me the way I love him. So I just get to try moving on. I swear to god that's what I was doing with you. Trying to make the best out of my life."

"And what? You were going to hide from me forever the fact that Christopher wasn't my son? I mean how long has he been invulnerable and strong, Chloe?"

"I didn't know...I don't even think he knew he was invulnerable until this morning. But I've been helping him hide his strength for about two years."

"Were you ever going to tell me or was it going to be some joke you two played on me. The 'daddy doesn't know' game?"

"I know I'd have had to tell you when he got his heat vision. I was waiting it out, frankly, until he was a teenager. Even if he is biologically Clark's, I wanted him to be yours, for you to raise him. I didn't even want it to be a question who you were to him because you're an amazing father and because Christopher worships you."

"How generous of you, Chloe," he said, shaking his head. "What a mess you've made."

"Believe me, I know."


	5. Chapter 5

6

Clark picked up his sandwich and tried to ignore the fact that half the Watchtower commissary was staring at him. Gossip spread fast in the satellite and he didn't need superhearing to know that most of his colleagues were talking about Superman and consultant Watchtower's love child. Forcing himself to pay attention to the ham and swiss like it was the most important thing he'd ever seen, Clark was able to block out the whispers.

He was less successful at blocking out a certain Amazon.

"Kal?" Diana said, taking a seat across from him at the table. "May we talk?"

Clark bit into his sandwich and nodded. "I suppose if I said 'no' it would be useless."

"I would wait for a better time but my thoughts are still pressing."

"Then I suppose now would be the time," he said, setting his lunch down and looking at her. "What do you want to know?"

"I'm surprised that you and Chloe would have a child. I wouldn't expect either of you to do this to Lois."

Clark blinked. "I didn't. I learned that Christopher was mine about eight hours ago. I had no idea."

Diana considered that. "I see."

Clark snorted. "You thought that little of me?"

"Traditionally, no. There are fewer people I trust more but, frankly, I wasn't sure what to think. I know your relationship with Chloe has always been complicated."

"Chloe left for Singapore by the time I met you. Whatever you think you know basically comes from Oliver's big mouth or Bart's."

"I knew Chloe before I ever met you."

"Huh?"

"She made her way to Themyscira in her travels that year Darkseid was first in Metropolis. I heard she also came by Gotham. Surely she told you that?"

Thinking on it, Clark frowned. "She mentioned right before she took the job at the Register that she'd met a woman with abilities, but never connected it with your name." He chuckled. "She said you'd throw me for a loop, and I suppose that's been true."

"I am a handful."

"Definitely. I...so the billionaire with the toys had to be Bruce. Funny, neither of you ever bring it up."

"Some of it is out of sight, out of mind. Chloe's not really one of us anymore. She's a civilian. Otherwise, I'm afraid I made too many assumptions. I assumed she'd told you all about her time with my people. She had to pick up the hand to hand skills from somewhere, Kal-El. Clearly the better hacking and weaponry was from Bruce."

"Yeah, true," Clark replied and somehow the idea of Bruce standing close enough to Chloe to teach her how to shoot made him want to pound things to dust.

"Then you might be able to see why I'm confused. There is probably no person on Earth as loyal to those she loves as Chloe Sullivan. So how Christopher exists confounds me."

"Well, you didn't know me then. You didn't even join the League until Chloe was in her third trimester."

"Fair enough, but Lois...explain it to me."

"This is one of those days where I wish you'd grown up in the States. The euphemism for it is 'we were on a break.' I don't suppose Amazons take those."

Diana didn't even flinch, although he knew for a fact she and Steve Trevor had taken their own down turn in their relationship roller coaster. "You and Lois had broken up?"

"She called off the engagement, gave me my ring back. Hell, she took a temporary assignment to London to get off the same continent as me. It was pretty over."

"And Chloe what? I am trying to understand this, Kal, really I am."

Clark sighed. Diana was the only one who called him that. Most of the League now, save for Oliver and Bruce, would call him Kal-El. It was who he truly was after all. No need for Clark Kent to be associated with any of this. Still, Diana found it polite to just use his first name and it reminded him badly of Kara, whom had stolen a Legion ring and he'd not seen in nearly a decade. She was probably somewhere at the other end of the 31st century working with Garth and Imra.

He missed her.

"Kal?"

"Right. Well, I needed a place to stay. Oliver and Dinah weren't offering and I'd sold the farm about a year before. Mom had her hands full with Conner. Chloe had space in her apartment and it was much better than renting a motel room to go home alone to or trying to make do at the Fortress. I really didn't want to be alone."

Diana shook her head. "Chloe's in love with you."

"I'm not sure she's actually...she seems pretty monofocused these days on whatever Christopher needs and, you know, there is George."

"No, you fail to understand. Chloe's always been in love with you. It was obvious to me the day I met her she was running from something. As convenient as her being away from the League during the VRA witch hunt turned out to be, she had other options, other methods she could have chosen. She was clearly seeking distance from Metropolis and from you."

"Ouch. She was dating Oliver at the time. He was far gone on her. I mean when she left, he pretty much went bonkers. It's why people know his identity now. It inspired his horrible coming out decision. If anything, she'd have been reacting to Oliver."

Diana shook her head. "I know what I saw. She never mentioned Oliver, not once. She talked about you all the time. She didn't tell us your name, but she always had a story about some Smallvillian adventure. She kept looking at me sadly and telling me how much you'd like me."

Clark bit into the remaining half of his sandwich and chewed for a while. "Funny. No offense, Diana, you're a terrific friend and an even better fighter but I've never been attracted to you."

"Mutual, Kal, but I can understand her perspective. You have a clear type with strong-willed brunettes among other things."

The inability to hurt Diana. But by that logic, he'd long ago have abandoned everything for Maxima.

"True but I can't really imagine Chloe, alone, for weeks on a Greek island, singing my praises, especially after the year we'd had. Even with her living in Singapore and making minimal phone contact, I'd never felt more cut off from her than that year, ever, and that includes anything from Lionel Luthor."

She nodded. "Whether you can imagine it or not, it's true. Oliver wasn't a thought to her, but she wouldn't stop alluding to you. How did she even know that the VRA would come for you all. She was on our island by July before you all were taken in December."

"Dr. Fate's helmet. She put it on, to find Oliver, by the way, and had a few other leads. She said that part of what she saw was us being captured. It's good she did or there wouldn't even be a JLA."

"Touche," Diana conceded. "Kal, I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that she saw more than she's ever admitted to."

"She saw Cadmus Labs burning, where Oliver was held, and the VRA thing...oh and new I'd go back to my colors. It wasn't like she got years downloaded into her brain."

"She saw you?"

"Superman," he corrected. "As I would be, not dark trench coat wearing The Blur. I'd be lying if it wasn't part of the reason I went back to my House colors that year. Why?"

"Kal, please think for one second, just one."

"I'm not a bad thinker."

"Sometimes you get stuck in a myopic loop. My point is that if she saw you as you are now, what else would she have seen?"

"The rest of the League? Hell maybe she went to Gotham and to Themyscira because she saw both of you and knew how important you were. She's never really talked about the helmet with me sense."

"Possibly, I don't deny that, but I meant on a personal level. If she saw you as Superman then, is it really so hard to believe, that she saw her cousin with your ring on her finger?"

Suddenly, no longer hungry, Clark set down his sandwich. "What?"

"I know what I saw and Chloe in Themyscira was a woman running from utter heartbreak. If Oliver was as gone as her then as you say, then it wasn't him she was having problems with. You can't help what she saw or didn't see, and you certainly can't help that she made the decision to run."

"Why do I feel there's a 'but' here?"

"But," Diana continued. "But you've known her since you were both thirteen years old. Chloe is transparent when it comes to you, even among near strangers. Surely you had to know that spending time in her apartment after Lois left you was an incredibly stupid idea."

"I didn't go there to sleep with her."

"Why did you sleep with her? I fear that the answer is that she was a cheap Lois substitute at the moment. One sharp-tongued Sullivan-Lane reporter for the other. You'd not be the first Leaguer to swap out."

"I'm not Oliver!"

"Then why did you do it, Clark? You had to know that when you agreed to it that you were giving Chloe everything she'd ever wanted, that you'd have to merely grunt at a bed and she'd get in it for you."

"I know your people think lowly of men but it wasn't like that."

Diana considered that and shrugged. "How long before you left her for Lois."

"I...Lois called the day after."

"I see. It was wrong for Chloe to hide Christopher's parentage from you, but it wasn't much better that you used her for sex."

"I didn't use her!"

Diana stood up and threw her hair over her shoulder. "Maybe you didn't on purpose or maybe you really thought it was a magical moment, I do not know, but from where I stand, Kal, and from what I know about Chloe...this whole incident doesn't do you any favors."

Clark was halfway through the labyrinthine corridors of the Watchtower on the way to his quarters (all of the Big Seven had bunks for long nights), when J'onn crossed his path. He groaned. If his run in with Diana were any indication, nothing J'onn would have to add on this situation would be better.

"J'onn, hi," Clark said, putting on a bit of speed and hoping J'onn would get the hint he wanted rest after an incredibly stressful day.

Kal-El, I wanted to talk.

"I already had a disapproving talk with Diana. She had it covered, even if this mess is Chloe's fault."

Large red eyes blinked back at him. I wasn't coming to accuse. It would be fair to say that both you and Chloe made ill-advised decisions, and that the emotional fall out to both your long-term relationships because of Christopher will be harsh. Endurable, maybe even fixable, but harsh no doubt.

"Joy," Clark said walking into his room and sighing when J'onn followed in uninvited. "That is also something Diana, and, well, the gawking of everyone in the 'Tower indicated to me. What is it you want?"

Oh to have been assigned a less moody charge. J'onn quipped.

"I'm serious. I'm exhausted."

What are your plans from here on out?

"Well I have to tell Lois. That's unavoidable and I'd feel wrong not telling her. I just was too busy running from the army to make a call. I don't know how she'll take it."

J'onn shook his head. I assumed you'd do that. That's not what I was most concerned with.

"What were you concerned with?"

What happens to your son?

Clark pulled out his desk chair and straddled it, putting his chin on its back. "Whatever Chloe says, of course. We'll find a safe place for him. We'll have to put him in hiding, of course. It's sad but no less true that 'Christopher Dean' and 'Elizabeth Cochran Dean' no longer exist. It's not the first time Chloe's changed her identity and Christopher's young enough that it'll confuse him but he'll barely remember having been a 'Christopher' at all."

That's hard enough to deal with and especially harsh for a child so young. But we can hide him. We have the resources and the technology, but that's not what concerns me. Kal-El, what are your plans for him?

"I was supposed to have some?"

Now would be the time to get them.

Running a hand through his hair, Clark let out a deep breath. "I don't know. I figured Chloe would choose a place to lie low and, if she were smart, a place nowhere near the United States, and that she and Christopher would go there. I am not sure if George is going to stay around for this ride or not but he's always seemed like a good dad the few times I've visited. Of course when he gets a new power, I'd help him train with it. I'd visit for speed or heat vision but otherwise, he's Chloe's."

Do you want him to be?

"Meaning?"

You're acting as if he's a chore or something you have to arrange around, at least to contain his abilities when they come. He's your son.

"We're related. It happens. I don't want a son, J'onn."

Pardon the rhetoric, J'onn said. /i But bullshit. I can feel the confusion and anger and frustration rolling off of you. /i

"Stupid empaths."

No less true. You're deeply hurt Chloe kept him from you and you missed his milestones-both the human and Kryptonian ones. You've always wanted a child, at least since Evan.

Clark glared up at his mentor. "Out of my head. That's incredibly rude. I wanted kids once, sure. I wanted them back on the farm when I was still in high school and thought I loved Lana. I wasn't the same guy then. You know that."

You certainly haven't been the man you were for Evan with Conner. I'll grant you that.

"What's that supposed to mean? I gave him over to mom. Mom's the best at dealing with hormonal Kryptonians that there ever was. She gave him a good home until he went off to college."

It still could have been you then. Lois liked Conner well enough, despite what happened. Christopher should be more than someone you make sure doesn't abuse his powers or can't control them. He's not a chore; he's a child.

"I don't have time for children, J'onn. Frankly, after all these years with Lois, I assumed I wasn't compatible. How was I supposed to know that one night with Chloe and mission accomplished? But it's no less true. I have a world to save every day, all day. I don't have time for little league or for school plays, for teach conferences or chicken pox, assuming he could catch that."

You can have a calling and be a parent. I was.

"No offense, but you were a bounty hunter. You weren't the one with the weight of the world on his shoulders."

There is more than just you to save the world. I would think the irony of you insisting you're all alone in the middle of League headquarters would be slapping you in the face by now.

"Superman can't be too human, alright? I learned to fly finally by embracing that side of myself I'd run from. I don't need many human attachments. I don't need a family life. It's all a distraction."

J'onn nodded. Kal-El, do you have a single friend outside of the League?

"I don't see-"

Do you ever have a poker night with guys from your office or go to happy hour with Jimmy Olsen? Do you do anything but mark time at the DP, listening to scanners and the associated press wire, save people and go home to Lois?

"I save people. That's my life. I can't be selfish cause every minute I'm not out there, someone dies!"

I take that as a no. How can you save humanity, if you don't even remember what that is?

"Excuse me?"

J'onn shook his head and as Clark watched shrank and melted until his human persona, Shaft coat and all, was standing before him. "At this point, I'm more human than you are."

"Irony in that statement aside, how do you figure?"

"I care deeply about all of you. The League is where my best friends are and where the people who can know what I am are. It still doesn't mean that 'John Jones' doesn't have friends and sometimes lovers and things he does. Stupid human things-movies, sports, hanging out at a bar after a patrol, grabbing donuts of course. I need something to sustain me for the rest of the fight, to remind me why I do what I do."

"I do have that. Her name is Lois Lane. My fiance, remember?"

J'onn sighed. "That's not fair to her to make her your one reason for existence, essentially, and to charge her solely with being your tether to humanity. Worse still, it's incredibly unhealthy. You have never understood balance, Clark. When I met you, you were hiding on the farm and playing house with Lana, disinterested in any of your Kryptonian heritage."

"And I grew up a lot."

"And now, you're hiding most of the time at the DP, making Lois your whole world that's not involved with being Superman, and pretending you were never human."

"I wasn't for one thing and for another that's not true."

"When's the last time you visited Jonathan Kent's grave?"

"The day Darkseid tried to take over and Tess died."

"That was almost eight years ago now. When's the last time you called Martha?"

"Three weeks ago. So?"

"You're a grown man. No need for you to call her all the time. But she's still your mother and the fact you can go a month or more without contacting her...it's not good for you."

"Being human makes me weak. I tried that. It got people killed. I'm better this way. So if you're trying to tell me that I've fucked up my life somehow when I'm that beacon of hope my human father-by the way-always said I would be, I don't believe you. Christopher can always come to me about his abilities or if he has questions about his heritage. But he's Chloe's."

J'onn frowned. "Your tone makes the word 'problem' implied at the end of this sentence. But if I were you, I'd sit down with myself and ask one question."

"What?"

"When did you go from having your deepest desire be a son like Evan to it being to show as little human weakness as possible?"

"That's not-"

J'onn brought his forefinger to his temple. "It's exactly what you're thinking. Goodnight, Clark."


	6. Chapter 6

6

He almost thought it was a conspiracy when Christopher showed up at his door, one arm clamped in a death grip around a Warrior Angel doll. Setting down his own book, Clark frowned down at his nephew, no, sorry, his son .

"Christopher, buddy, where are your mom and dad?"

"They're in their room yelling a lot. I didn't like it and I don't really like it here. It's all bright and gleamy."

"It's a little metallic, yeah," Clark replied, still not moving from his seat on his bed. "Do you want me to take you back to them. I can probably get them to stop fighting for the night and hang out with you."

Christopher shook his head and pressed the button on the wall that made the door slide shut behind him. "I wanted to see you."

"Did you?"

He nodded and before Clark could object was sitting beside him on the bed. Note to self, even human speed kindergartners were fast. "You're Superman."

"Well yes. That's true."

"My uncle's Superman. That is so cool!"

Clark nodded. "It's a pretty big secret so if you could just not go spreading it, I'd appreciate it."

"Duh! It's like how Stephen Swift is Warrior Angel. It's a secret. You can't tell anybody. Everyone knows that about superheroes. They all have secrets."

"If only you knew."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind, just I'm glad you're not going to tell anyone. It's not very safe for me or for your Aunt Lois or your Grandma Martha if people knew. All sorts of bad guys would track me down and hurt my family."

"Yes, like in issue #5 where Devilicus kills Penelope. Like I said, everyone knows that!"

Something clenched in Clark's chest that had nothing to do with his current predicament. Christopher's enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge of Warrior Angel reminded him of Lex, back when they'd been friends and the other man actually remembered him. Lana. Lex. Pete. So many people he thought he'd be friends with forever at fourteen were gone irrevocably from his life. Even Chloe, really, wasn't in his world anymore. If she had been, he'd have noticed far faster who Christopher truly was.

"Uncle Superman?" Christopher asked, pulling on the sleeve of the old Crows t-shirt he wore. "You're still here right?"

He nodded. "It can just be Clark. I mean, just call me 'Clark.' No codenames and no 'uncle' since we're...well technically cousins I guess."

"Okay, Clark. Where's your costume?"

"I don't wear it to sleep in. I mean does Warrior Angel?"

"I dunno. They don't have a lot of scenes in the comics where he goes to sleep. That's pretty boring."

"True," Clark said, even laughing a little. "But I prefer just to sleep in my sweats. Capes aren't really practical for sleeping."

"I like your costume. It's pretty. The 's' is real big!"

"Well it's not actually an 's.'"

"Yes it is, I can read. Mommy taught me when I was three."

Chloe would.

"No, I mean, here," Clark said, grabbing a pen and opening up to the dedication page of the novel he'd been reading. Quickly, he sketched off the original symbol of his House. "See."

"That's an eight!"

"No, it's a symbol from Krypton, from where I was born. It means 'air' and it also means 'El.'"

Christopher frowned. "Still looks like an eight."

"Well it's a coincidence. It's a symbol for my family, my real family."

This made Christopher frown harder. "But you grew up here too. Mommy has pictures of you and her and Aunt Lois from when she was young. She even has a few I found on my own of you and her and this black guy."

"Pete. He was our friend when we were in middle school and high school. Some of those pictures she saved are twenty years old."

"Wow!"

"Yeah, long time. I just mean that's the symbol for my Kryptonian family, for where I really come from."

"Do you ever wear things around that remind you of Grandma Martha?"

"She, uh, actually makes my suits. She's really good at it."

"I wish she'd make me those instead. She always knits me dinosaur sweaters, and it's not ever cold in Singapore!"

"Well, I'm sure if you ask nicely, she'll knit you something different for your birthday."

"Maybe but see, your outfit's from Grandma Martha too."

"I guess it is. I never really thought about it that way, if you want to know the truth. I just wanted people to see my House, to know that I was honoring my real father. I...maybe that's hard to explain to a five year old."

"I guess, but Grandma Martha still made it, so she's there too every time you go out."

"Maybe she is."

"Definitely," Christopher finished. "Can you read to me?"

"You said you could read."

"I wanted a bedtime story. Mom wouldn't mind if I fell asleep here."

"Oh, I think she'd mind a lot, actually."

"Why is everyone so mad at her? Is it because she didn't tell anyone I was strong?"

Clark swallowed and turned the paperback over in his hands. "It's definitely part of it. She shouldn't have lied like she did. She did a very bad thing."

"But you hide your powers, like you do when you're not in your outfit or Warrior Angel or how no one knows who The Batman really is. I have to hide mine."

"Yes, you do, but not from us. Not from your family or your dad. That wasn't fair."

"It's kind of neat though."

"How?" he said, flinching a little when Christopher flopped down on his side. "Buddy, really, let's get you back to your dad."

"No, they're still probably yelling at each other. I just...I think it's neat that you're strong like me. I mean you can do a million things and I'm just strong."

For right now.

"Yeah, still, really-"

Christopher, who was every inch Chloe's son when it came to bowling people over, ignored him and grabbed the novel he'd been reading. " To Kill a Mockingbird. Can you read this to me?"

"You said you could read."

"I like when people read to me and there are probably big words in this I don't know yet. Please, Clark?" He was looking up at Clark with big limpid eyes, biting his lip the way Chloe always did and, no matter how ludicrous her requests, Clark had never been able to refuse her either. It was how he ended up delivering Planet Christmas toys after all.

"Alright, just a little and then you're going back to see your mom and dad, deal?"

He nodded and yawned. "Sure, Clark, now start already!"

He sighed and picked up the book. It had been one of his dad's favorites along with Huckleberry Finn , but while his dad had read and reread Twain to Clark as a child; he'd never done the same with Harper Lee's master opus. Clark had discovered it for himself in high school after Lex had recommended it. Still, everything about Atticus reminded him about his dad, whether that was romanticized or not. He reread the novel often.

Clearing his throat, Clark began, "When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow..."

Chloe was not in the mood to come into her son's room and find everyone's favorite Martian sitting where she'd left Christopher.

"Let me guess; he raided the fridge at the cafeteria and OD'ed on ice cream sandwiches."

"No, he's with his father."

"I just left George's room and oh," she said, stopping when she realized J'onn meant Clark. "Did you lead him there?"

J'onn shrugged. "I can tell where people go if I bother to read them. I came here to make sure he was comfortable for the night and when I couldn't find him, sought out his mind to make sure he was okay. Clark's been reading him To Kill a Mockingbird for over an hour."

"Oh."

"Yeah, I'm sure Clark won't mind you collecting him."

"I should. I don't...if they fall asleep in his room, and George finds out about it, well, everything already harder than it has to be."

"You were wrong to lie, Chloe, but I understand why you did it, and I don't mean about protecting Christopher from people who might exploit him."

"Really, J'onn? Because I'm not even sure I can explain to me what the Hell I was thinking."

J'onn sighed and patted her hand. "You love Clark."

"Yes, I do. I tried everything under the sun to make it not so, believe me I did. I dated other men, married three of them even if Brainiac and Zatanna sort of swindled me the first two times. I left Metropolis forever after Clark's bachelor party. I...well I moved to the other side of the planet and built a family. I know it's not fair to penalize Clark and Lois or make them feel awkward cause I can't change how I'm made."

"And it was misguided and still wrong, but noble in a way that you were willing to go into isolation of a sort to spare especially Lois's feelings."

"I know Clark. He's so Clark. He'd want to do the right thing. I mean even if that meant we work out a timeshare system, it would have ended their relationship. Lois is a good woman and she deserves to be happy and Clark...well after how many false starts he'd had in his love life, he deserved this too. I couldn't let me and Christopher ruin it."

"Do you think that it's been the best decision?"

She snorted. "Well since George won't speak to me or look me in the eye, Clark's furious with me, and Lois is going to find out and it's going to crush her, then I guess no it wasn't."

"I can't argue most of those points. I can feel the anger pouring off both men, for different reasons, this is true."

"Perfect."

"But do you really think what you did was best for Clark?"

"He didn't love me. He was weak and I was a mistake when he was upset. If Christopher hadn't happened, it'd be this night we'd pretend never happened for as long as we lived. Besides, I had my own life and family for a bit. I...he had more important things to do and Lois in his life. She's perfect for him. She makes him happy. I told him once, the day he came back from training and stopped Alia, I told him that I'd had the honor of being in his life and that sometimes things like that come to an end. I let him go because he wasn't mine to keep, J'onn."

"Maybe, but maybe what Clark wants and what he actually needs aren't the same thing. We both know he wanted to live with Lana and have normal, human life with her. It was blatant that year Kara was on the farm. I know you were frustrated with him, with how he wouldn't do much of anything."

"Yes, true, but he's more than embraced his destiny and Lois supports him in it and always has."

"Lois supports Superman."

"Yeah, I just said that."

"Who supports Clark?"

"I think I'm confused. In case you were behind on the newsflashes Clark is Superman, so Lois supporting him, good thing."

"Clark was at his best when you were really around and with him. That year you were split so badly, when he wore all black and burned things down, and you became Big Brother, that year was horrible for both of you. Neither of you were heroes."

"I know and I wish I'd listened to you sooner. I got lost inside of Watchtower and it almost killed me. You tried to reach out and I didn't listen. I'd have saved myself a lot of pain if I had, not to mention avoided a lot of mixed signals and a painful break up with Ollie."

"True, then maybe you should listen to me now. You've done well for yourself. I don't know if you had to go to Singapore to do it, but you've recovered your career and a life for yourself outside of Clark and of the League and I think you needed to. You've been fighting since you were fourteen even if you go back to Lionel and to the meteor infected. Taking time away from the fight, rediscovering yourself was a blessing for you."

"Yeah and one that has managed to piss everyone I know off."

"Still, you are so much healthier than you were. The day you received your Pulitzer...I mean Diana, Bruce, Oliver, and I could tell from the crowd you were smiling. It was a mile wide, of course. But I could feel it too. I could feel your emotions and they were as elated and overjoyed as they were decimated when I was in Watchtower helping with the Justice Society years ago. You've brought yourself back, Chloe, and a lot of people never can. Clark can't ."

She laughed and squeezed his hand. "He's not dressed like The Matrix and setting towers on fire. I'd say he's more than fine."

"And since you've lived nine thousand miles away from him, I can understand how you think he's fine."

"Well that and I talk to Lois every other day and keep in touch with Oliver and Mrs. Kent. It's not like I'm out of the loop completely."

"He's not who he was."

"Yes we established this. He's not an arsonist who beats up on women like Tess, aren't we proud?"

"No that was unforgivable. I mean he's not his best. He thinks he is, and the world thinks he is but he can be so much more."

"J'onn even his powers have a limit. Even he loses some rounds."

"That's not what I mean and that's why there's a League for when even I or Diana or Clark aren't enough. I mean that the best he ever was was when he was working with the Legion to save you."

"What?"

"It's not about you as an object or as someone to save, but what I meant is that when I saw him a few weeks later I knew that he'd grown into the man both of his fathers wanted him to be. I haven't seen that man since, even if he's much better than he was after he stopped dressing in black. He's not human."

"That's a hypocritical statement coming from you."

"No, I mean he's ignoring half of who he is and Lois is aiding him in that. She's a good woman, she is, but she doesn't see Clark Kent and she never has. She loves Kal-El and Superman and has no clue who Clark is."

"He loves her, she loves him, and they support each other," Chloe finished, her voice tight. "It's worked for seven years."

"I suppose, but if it's worked so well, Chloe, why aren't they married and when's the last time anyone really spent time with Clark . Even with us, even among his closest and oldest friends at the 'Tower, he's always all business, even Bruce has his softer side with Alfred and with his protégés. Clark doesn't."

"Um with Lois?"

"She wants a god and she has it. She doesn't realize the human side of him is on life support. If you'd been in the States you would have long ago. If you regret ignoring me when Zod was rising, then listen to me now. Clark needs you, you've always tied him best to his humanity, even more than Martha. And, frankly, he needs the family you and Christopher could provide him."

"He doesn't love me."

"He doesn't love Lois, either."

"Of course he does. She's all he ever fucking thought about after training. He basically threatened Kandorian genocide over her. J'onn, I don't know if you're just trying to make me feel better or if this is some weird sublimated wish to have your own son back and living vicariously through Clark or just Oreo cookie overdoses, but Clark loves Lois. Epic all time love of the ages, makes him Superman, yadda yadda. Everyone knows that."

"Chloe, why do you think you were the only one who ever saw the future prematurely?"

"What?"

"Go collect Christopher and talk to his father. I think you both have a lot to learn from each other."

Stupid empaths.

When she walked into Clark's room, her heart clenched. Both boys had fallen asleep on each other. Christopher lay curled up against Clark's side, his hand curled tightly in the fabric of Clark's t-shirt. For his part, Clark lay with one hand half gripping the book at his side and his chin resting on the crown of his son's head. Chloe had dreamed of this scenario a hundred times over since she'd realized she was pregnant with his child. In her weak moments, late at night, she'd let herself imagine what being a family with Clark could have been like, what he'd look like holding their child in his arms.

She'd never let herself think these things by the light of day and she'd never dared hope she'd see even a glimpse of it in real life.

Even if this was a fluke, a one time opportunity, she'd take it. Hell, she might even make Bruce give her the security feed from this room over the last two hours. She could have this, if she couldn't have him.

Just to prove it happened.

"Clark," she whispered, knowing he'd hear her. "Clark, we need to talk."

"Chlo?" Clark asked, blinking awake and stopping himself from shifting too much. "I...oh, I didn't mean to fall asleep. I was going to bring him back, I swear. He came to see me."

"J'onn told me. I wasn't worried. Obviously he can't get hurt in Watchtower. I'm not even sorry he imposed."

Clark looked down and then back at her. "I tried to discourage him but he drives a hard bargain and suddenly it just was story time."

"He likes being read to. We do it every night and, on nights when his dad works late, we read the comics I made. I don't think he really believed them until today though, just thought I was making things up."

"You weren't."

"No," she said, hovering on the edge of the room. "I wasn't. Clark, we do need to talk but I don't suppose you can just come and take a stroll with me, can you?"

He shook his head. "I don't want to wake him. He's had a worse day than any of us. I don't know why he hasn't pressed us twenty questions style about why he didn't die."

Chloe sighed. "He's used to weird things happening to him, about things we don't share. I don't know why he's not pressed me yet, but he doesn't share with anyone else, even George."

"Especially George."

"Yes," she conceded. Against better judgment, she slipped into the bed on Christopher's right side. It was a king. It wasn't like they were scrunched together. Reaching over, she stroked their son's hair. "He knows how to be a secret keeper."

"I've noticed and I wouldn't wish that on anyone if it weren't a necessity," Clark admitted. "Where are you two going to go?"

"I don't know. Obviously not America or Singapore. I could go anywhere I want. I've actually been thinking this time making Bruce call in the favor and becoming a Gazette foreign affairs reporter out of Costa Rica."

"Well that's amazingly specific for on the fly? Can I ask why Costa Rica?"

"It'd be a nice place. I like the tropical weather now, can't abide winter, but, from a practical aspect, they haven't even had a standing army since 1975. It'd be good to live in a place where there isn't even a military power looking to control my child."

"You never would come home would you?"

"I can't. I can't be in Metropolis or Star City. I can't be anywhere I'd ever been before. What does it matter? I got the impression that you weren't going to be taking the dad thing full time and, besides, superspeed. There's nothing for us in a country with a bounty on Christopher's head."

"I...there's me and Sam and Lois. Martha and some of the League. You have friends there."

"I have friends all over. Hell, Lucy lives in Romania. I could go there and watch her con people for sport. I mean, really, there's nothing for me in Metropolis and hasn't been in forever."

"I didn't say that exactly. I just...Costa Rica, really?"

"Do you have a better suggestion. He can't live in the Fortress or here, safe as they are. He needs a place no one would think to look for us, and as far from men like Flynn as possible. Besides, Clark, you have your own life with Lois. I wasn't ever going to move back to the city now that you know and what? Get an apartment in the same complex or a few blocks over? Make it so you can stop by every so often and check up on how his powers are coming in? I mean what were you thinking I'd do?"

"I was thinking you and maybe George would go off somewhere and hide with him, yes."

"George is furious at me, but he's Christopher's...he raised him."

"I didn't get a choice in that matter."

"No, but George is still Christopher's father, the way Jonathan Kent was yours. It doesn't diminish who you are to him, but it doesn't mean because there's no genetics involved that George is any less important in his life either."

"Real fathers matter more," Clark said, his tone filled with a hauteur Chloe chocked up to him only when he was talking in his Superman tone. She'd always thought of it as an affectation of late. Maybe it wasn't.

"Excuse me? Do you ever tell that to Martha?"

"I...mom and dad...they did raise me and I'm grateful, but they don't make me who I am."

"Bullshit," she hissed, mindful to keep her voice low. "They were your parents for over a decade before you even knew you weren't human, and long before you ever heard of Krypton and Jor-El's crap. What happened that now you give two shits about the AI?"

"He's not all bad."

"Let's just see: infanticide, branding, brainwashing, killing Jonathan, trying to freeze me, freezing you, mindraping and stripping Kara of her powers, and I can go on. I don't think you two got off on the wrong foot. I think Jor-El is an asshole."

"I learned to fly by embracing that part of myself, by accepting Jor-El's guidance. Clearly, clinging to the Kents was holding me back. It's why I sold the farm. It's why I don't visit Smallville anymore. I'm my best when I'm Kryptonian."

Chloe looked up at Clark, and finally saw him for the first time in almost a decade. The rigidity of his posture, the stiff set of his chin, the flatness in his tone. "You do believe that. How dare you. How dare you put Jor-El over your real father. Jonathan died for you, and you what? Decided to cut off all feelings for him?"

"When I think about Jonathan Kent, I get bogged down in guilt and blame and confusion over his death, it makes me weak, so I learned from Brainiac not to do it, to move on."

"Excuse me? Brainiac? Cause he's such a wonderful force for good in our lives. When did you even see Brainiac? He's been gone since the Legion extracted him from me."

"Not exactly," Clark said, sighing. "The Legion reprogrammed what they extracted from you and it calls itself Brainiac Five. It works with them in the 31st century as a force for good. If you really don't believe me, you can always grill Booster Gold about it."

"I might, but you met a version of Brainiac from the future and where was I when this was going on? I think I'd remember that!"

"You were in Themyscira, apparently. It was at Homecoming the year you were 'dead.' Brainiac Five showed up and played A Christmas Carol with me. He showed me that Jonathan's funeral was what really started to corrupt me and that I had to let it go. He was right."

"What else did he show you?"

"Chloe...it really shouldn't matter."

"What. Else," she pressed, afraid for Clark that he'd even think to take advice from any incarnation of Brainiac.

Even if it had been reprogrammed, and she had faith that Garth and Rokk could manage it, it was a machine. It was an advanced machine, sure, but still a machine. It would never understand the intricacies of human relationships, how important they were. Fuck, it had lived in her head for the better part of a year and had stripped her bit by bit of her sense of self. Chloe knew it didn't understand human emotions correctly.

"It showed me the future, my future at The Daily Planet . It showed me that I'd be Superman, what my costume would look like, how people would react to me...that I'd actually be able to fly."

Chloe swallowed and clutched Christopher's hand. "Did it show you Lois?"

Clark blushed. He'd always been so easy to read. "Yes, it showed me that one day I'd tell Lois everything and that she'd support and protect my secret. It showed me how perfect we'd be. We weren't really even on speaking terms at the time cause she'd just come back from Africa and we'd broken up and she didn't know I was The Blur and-"

"Believe me, I remember. So just so I'm kind of getting it. Brainiac Five showed up when you were in a down time of your life, showed you the past and told you to get over your dad and then showed you the future where you were already super awesome and Lois was in love with you, and knew the secret. That's what really inspired you to get your shit together You got better cause you saw the future?"

"Well yes."

"That sounds incredibly circular and paradox-laden. You knew Lois was The One, not more than just a crush or more than the one you were going to let go because you couldn't tell her, because the future told you so."

"Yeah?"

"You knew that you could tell Lois your secret because you saw that you had told her your secret and that she was totally fine with it-which, by the way, I spent a year telling you she would be, duh-is this about the shape of it."

"What's your point?"

"That is the smallest amount of commitment I've ever seen. You told Lois not because you trusted her but because through an unbelievable cheat, Brainiac of all people, showed you she'd be cool with it. I...if you'd never seen the future, would you still be lying to her?"

"I don't think so but I did see the future and I did tell her, and we're happy!"

"I...just so we're clear, because it's nice to have things actually out there cause after Davis we were never right again."

"I know."

"You love Lois because she knows who you are and supports you and protects your secret, because she loves you back even if you're not human."

"Of course."

"Why isn't it ever me, Clark? What's so fucking defective about me? You fell in love with Lois one hundred percent after you saw her being an impressive DP reporter who loves, supports, and protects you back. You asshole! You fell in love with her for being me . I used to tell myself that...I don't know what. With Lana, I told myself she's Lana Lang, ungodly beautiful and everyone loves her. If I were petty, I'd say you only think with one organ and it's not your brain, but, aside from dark hair, Lois and Lana look not nothing alike! Besides, if you're into brunettes, for fuck's sake, I dye my hair, shock."

"Chloe, shhh, he's sleeping."

She nodded and took a few deep breaths to rein everything in. "I'm sorry. I'm having a really hard time dealing with the thing that sold you on telling Lois and trusting her, that eventually sold you in short order on proposing marriage, is that she's the knock off version of me but taller and with bigger boobs."

"That's not it...besides, why do you care? You were half way across the world and still technically sleeping with Oliver. Brainiac showed me Lois would be the woman I needed, and who was I to argue with that. You were gone, Chlo, and you weren't coming back and she was a sure thing."

Chloe swallowed and nodded. "A sure thing. Epic. You coward. You told her cause you knew there'd be no consequences to the actions, that she was going to accept you regardless. You love her cause it's guaranteed easy. I can't even. It must have confused the Hell out of you when she dumped you."

"It hurt like Hell, you know that, and I didn't know how Brainiac could have been wrong. I was devastated. Besides, you want to talk seeing the future! What about you? You put on the Fate helmet for a few minutes and suddenly you're faking your death and running around the globe. Really?"

"You think I saw more than I said?"

"I know you saw more than just Cadmus, Oliver, and the VRA lackeys. I know it. You told me when you woke up, I don't even know if you remembered it, but you said 'I saw you, too, Clark. You were the world's hero and you weren't in black.' You saw me as I am now. I...did you see Lois with me?"

"I don't want to talk anymore. I need to take Christopher back to his room."

"No, Chloe. You've avoided this for over eight years. What did you see?"

"I saw you, alright? But it was weird, everything I saw of the far future was focusing on Lois and her perfect life. I saw who she'd become, that she'd be working with Jimmy's little brother and with Perry, that she'd be beloved by world leaders and famous and everything I ever thought I'd be when I had a life outside of Watchtower. I saw a wedding ring on her hand and I knew whose it was even if the only glimpse of you I saw was in costume saving a plane from crashing. I knew damn well whom she married."

"And this was from what? 2017? Now?"

"No...that's sort of the weird part. It was from 2013. When I saw it, you all were supposed to be married by then and, I guess if Darkseid hadn't fucked up your big day, you would have been. I guess Fate helmet didn't see that coming yet, I honestly don't know."

"You didn't fake your death to save the League, did you?"

"It was good I wasn't in Metropolis too and got rounded up. I did the smart thing."

"But you didn't fake your death for just that, did you?"

"I couldn't, Clark. I just couldn't. Lois is my sister. I...Christ, she's who I called the night you fucking left me on the dance floor at Spring Formal. I thought I could make it, salvage things with you after Zod and everything, knowing that Lois was moving to Africa and you two weren't dating anymore. I thought I could, but then there it was large as life that you love everyone but me, and I couldn't stay to watch it happen twice. Fuck, why should I have to? I'm not going to stand in your way like I did when I was fifteen with Lana, but I'm not going to fake a smile and pretend it doesn't hurt for the rest of my life either. So, no, once I saw the inevitable, I was never going to stay. God, some days even nine thousand miles didn't seem like enough."

"Chlo-" he said, reaching out to cup her cheek.

"No, don't 'Chlo' me. I get it. I'm messed up. You didn't lead me on. You didn't promise me shit even when we did finally sleep together. I didn't want to let one mistake ruin freakingdestiny . I'm happy most days. Even if from here on out it's just me and Christopher, I'll be happy. I do have part of you and this part," she said kissing her son's forehead, "Loves me more than anything."

"Chloe...when we...I didn't sleep with you because I missed Lois. I would never ever do that to you."

"Then why did you sleep with me?"

"That night, everything felt right, like what had been interrupted on Dark Thursday finally had a chance to happen. I wanted to be more than friends the day we met. I wanted to keep trying after the tornado, and I would have dated you after we kissed in the DP. If we had, we'd have been married a decade ago and Henry James Olsen, Oliver, and Lois wouldn't even be footnotes in this story."

"And she called the next fucking day and I was out on my ass again. Try harder, Clark."

"If you remember, I woke up and you weren't there. I called you and you wouldn't answer your cell or your work phone. You blew me off for hours. I know I'm a guy, but it doesn't do wonders for a guy's ego to wake up and to realize that the girl you made love to won't even acknowledge you exist."

"I skipped work that day," she admitted. "I just walked around downtown Star City. I was too scared to go back because I woke up in this one perfect moment and was terrified you'd wake up upset going 'what am I going to tell Lois now!' I spared us the awkward, okay?"

"I wasn't going to do that. I wouldn't have done that. Then when you did get home and I...I tried to ask about your day and play it casual, just give you a kiss on the cheek and you were so cold and distant."

"I was bracing myself for the inevitable, which happened."

"You rejected me first. You always have shot me down first, Chloe, when I wasn't even going to say no."

"You still went back to her and it's better, isn't it? What's Superman without Lois Lane?"

"Clark Kent," he answered, taking both her hands in his. "Chloe, I don't even know who I am anymore. Brainiac Five showed me how I was supposed to be, and I've been that guy for a long time now. I even...this sounds nuts...but I had these, I dunno, maybe hallucinations they day Tess died and Lex came back. I saw my father."

"Goodie for Jor-El," she said, wishing she could move her hands but Clark was not letting them go.

"No, I mean Jonathan Kent. I...I don't know. I'd never seen him like this before and I never have sense. But I saw him in the loft after you'd left for Star City. He was the one telling me I had to embrace Jor-El, that it was the only way. I...it was so weird, I didn't see him in other places but I felt him. I felt him in the church by mom. I...ask J'onn; I don't think Kryptonians are psychics. I don't even think it was a ghost, more like what I wished he'd say to me, just any fucking guidance at all."

"Clark, you saw him and he told you to follow Jor-El?"

"Maybe it was just in my head, I honestly don't know but yeah and then when I went to the Fortress to get my suit, he handed it to me too. I can't explain it. Maybe it was guilt or desperation or real, I can't tell, but yeah, between Brainiac Five and what I think I saw that day I didn't get married...I thought this is what I'm supposed to be."

"Did you ever tell Lois about Jonathan visiting you or about Brainiac Five?"

"No, I don't tell Lois a lot of things. I never told her about either of those things or about how when I went to the alternate universe the second time, I met that world's Jonathan Kent. It hurt so much to see anyone who even was like dad. It burned so badly. I couldn't share it...I just couldn't."

"But Lois is your confidant. You should tell her everything."

"Maybe I should but I don't. In fact, we barely talk about anything substantive."

"Bullshit," she said, though only half-heartedly. It was obvious that Clark had been hiding things even from himself.

"We don't spend as much time together as you imagine we do. I patrol every day, she insists I do all day Saturday and Sunday. She says she can't handle the thought of someone drowning in Taipei or being shot in Toronto because we were watching a movie on the couch. We don't share even the same floor at work. We have stolen moments in the closet and on good nights dinner together and I finish patrol in time to, well, fall asleep with her and usually that's literal. I'm so tired most days, Chlo. Isnt' that stupid? I am supposed to have limitless abilities and I am tired all the God damn time."

"That's not stupid. You always have run yourself ragged if no one made you stop, like with Dark Thursday clean up, or how you were when you first started at the Planet and were obsessed with the scanners. You need to rest too, Clark. You're Kryptonian; you're not God."

"Aren't I?"

"Excuse me?"

"No, not in a stuck up way. I mean, I know I'm not like creator of the universe or whatever."

"One can hope not," she said, grinning despite herself.

"But I can change fate and save lives. I can't justify taking time for myself, can I? Lois doesn't think so. Like I'm mad at you. I had a right to see his first steps and hear his first word and to be there when he got his strength. That's part of being a father, but, at the same time, you probably did the best thing for the world."

"I don't understand."

"I can't have a family, Chloe. I can't have a child. Sure, some part of me would like to figure out a way to be there for Christopher more than as a powers coach. Sure, I'd love to teach him how to toss a football or read him bedtime stories at night, but the world needs Superman and I don't have a right to be selfish and have a family. I'm more than that."

"Because you're a god."

"No because I can do more. If I can do more, then settling for less is wrong."

"Having a family isn't lesser, Clark. You could be both. Hell, if you and Lois wanted a family of your own, you could be both."

"I know...I'm realizing that. I've spent so long since I think I saw dad trying to cut off my emotions, trying to be less soft and less human, trying to be the hero Lois and I think I should be, I don't even remember who Clark Kent was. I mean, all he is now is a mask about as real as Bruce's playboy schtick. I told myself for years that it was okay. Lois always had an excuse not to make it official, that it was okay that I wasn't really spending time with anyone not really even her, that I didn't want a family."

"You always wanted to be at least a brother, even with Ryan. After Evan, it was obvious that...jeez, I thought you'd be the first one out of all of us to have a kid, alien or not."

"I didn't think I was compatible even. It's why the timing behind Christopher's birth never pinged for me. Lois and I don't use protection."

Chloe nodded and wished their relationship occasionally had boundaries. "You don't use it. Have you ever asked her if she were on the pill?"

"Yeah, she said she's not."

"Did you ever consider she lied?"

"Why would she?"

Chloe sighed and stroked the back of his hands. "Because Lois has created this fantasy for herself where you're perfect and infallible and a god, and, Greek myths not withstanding, gods don't have children. Between Brainiac and whatever that vision of Jonathan was screwing with your brain and Lois's god-worship, however well intended it was, you've bought into the party line, Clark."

"I think maybe I had."

"I know you. I remember you when I was taller than you are. I remember your idiocy over Lana or when you ran away to Metropolis. I remember when you killed Titan in the ring when you let your anger get the better of you or when you set Rao towers on fire. I remember you wanting a normal human life more than anything and I thought you'd found it in Lois, found someone who could support you like Lana never really had and who understood. I'm so sorry I was wrong."

"I...Lois is a good person."

"She is but she loves illusions. She has these images in her head of how things should be and to her, you're god. I...it's not healthy for her and it's worse for you. You fuck up all the time and someone needs to be around to remind you of it but, worse, someone needs to be around to say that it's okay to watch a Shark's game or it's a good night to relax atThe Ace of Clubs . You're no good to anyone if you burn yourself out and you will; it's a miracle you haven't already."

"J'onn said that basically to me not three hours ago."

"And you agreed with him too?"

"I threw him out. Then I just, I held Christopher...I held my son in my arms and it felt like I finally realized why I'd been feeling so empty for so long. I do want a human life. I don't want to only be Superman and everything else be marking time. Clark Kent exists and he's not just stupid glasses and a nasally whine."

She nodded and squeezed his hands. "I'm glad we could be of service then."

"That's not what I meant exactly. I just...for so many years, before I cut off my emotions, this right here was all I ever dreamed of, a family, a way not to be the last, a woman who loves me for who I am and not what I do or where I come from, and a son, someone like me. I...it's overwhelming, Chlo."

"He can be," she said, kissing their son's forehead. Clark released her hands and she also straightened out Christopher's unruly bangs. He took after his father in a lot of ways. You're more than welcome to visit us as often as you can wherever we end up. I...if George comes with us, then we'll make it work. George is a good man and he knows that Christopher now has special needs. He's not going to spite him for my mistakes. Or spite you when you were as duped."

"I don't just want to visit is what I'm saying."

"What?"

"I want you, both of you."

"Then color me surprised," Lois said, stalking into the room and dropping her duffle loudly enough to startle Christopher awake. "Smallville, Chlo, you have a lot of explaining to do.


	7. Chapter 7

7

It was Christopher who broke the stunned silence and tension. Sitting up and rubbing his eyes, he looked up at Chloe.

"Mom, what's going on? Did I sleep too long?"

Clark watched Chloe think lightning fast through her response, probably picking the right mix of truth and lie. "Sweetheart, Aunt Lois just got in. I...I think it's best if we went back to our room and got sleep there."

Their son nodded and got to his feet, crawling over Chloe's legs to do so. "Bye Uncle...I mean Clark. Aunt Lois, I missed you," he added, smiling.

Lois didn't smile back. "I know Christopher, but can you give me and Clark some time to talk?"

He considered that and nodded, "Okay, mommy, come with me."

Chloe spared Lois a glance, hopped out of the bed, and grabbed Christopher's hand. "Lois, I can explain."

"I can fill in the facts for myself, Chloe. I never thought you'd be like this."

"We'll talk. I don't think I can do anything justice as tired and full of adrenaline as I am," she said, pulling their son out the door.

Clark stood up, feeling that a talk this serious couldn't work in a supine position. "I can explain too."

She nodded and crossed her arms over her chest. "I knew, you know. I've always known."

He couldn't stop from gaping at her. "What?"

"I suspected at first when Chloe left to Singapore so suddenly; there had to be a reason for it. Then three months later, the quickie marriage and then Christopher almost like a shotgun and a 'premie?' It was too much. I mean, at first I assumed Ollie and a moment of weakness, but it lined up so well with when we had been broken up. I wasn't one hundred percent sure until Dinah let something slip to me over the phone. Ollie covered for Chloe and he let Dinah in on all of it and, a few months after Christopher was born, she told me."

Clark blinked. "You knew?"

Lois sighed and brought a hand to her temples. "Yeah, I definitely knew all this time. I don't know what I was waiting for. Maybe for Chloe to woman up and tell you, maybe I was waiting for you to actually get it. I couldn't imagine how you hadn't."

"She was married to George and, frankly, we haven't really seen them that much. Chloe was keeping her distance and I didn't visit because I couldn't explain to George just popping in. Besides, as blond as he is, I was assuming if he weren't George's then Oliver was possibly the next best candidate. Christ Lois, why would I think it? We've been sleeping together for eight years and you've never gotten pregnant. I figured the Kawatchee were wrong and I wasn't compatible."

Lois nodded. "I've been on the pill the whole time. I just...I didn't tell you."

He stepped back a few steps, the truth almost like a blow dealt by Doomsday or Darkseid. All this time? After she'd hinted at wanting kids after Conner had stayed with them. Why wouldn't she want them? Was it him and, if it were, which part-the alien or the dork that was so far beneath her? "What?"

"I did want kids, believe me I did, but I couldn't be selfish like that. Like I said before our engagement party, the world needs you more. It needs you every minute of every day. You can't be distracted with a family. It's part of why I never told you about Christopher, I think, deep down, and it's why I stayed on birth control. God knows I wanted the picket fence with you, even if I'm not the mother type, but it's not your destiny."

Resentment began to surge through him. "You didn't ask me. You didn't even let me know. I spent all this time, almost a decade, thinking something was wrong with me. I...you should have at least let me know what you were doing. And who are you to decide what my destiny is."

"I'm not but it's obvious. The Fortress told me as much and, even if it hadn't, I can see what you mean to people, what you meant starting from the day you saved the president. I can't interfere with that. I just can't."

"But what if I wanted someone to? What if I wanted more than just working all the time, being on patrol more than I'm even at the DP? I can decide to take a break sometimes. I can decide if I want a family or rest. I...ever since Evan back during senior year, it's something I've seriously thought about."

She stepped forward and started to reach out to him; he rejected her overtures and her back stiffened. "You can't have entanglements like that. It'll distract you."

"I...Oliver has Connor, as fucked up as that is for his relationship with Dinah. For all intents and purposes, Bruce has adopted both Dick and Jason. Others of us have lives. We have things outside of the Watchtower."

"They're not you. I...you're more powerful than all of them, except maybe Diana. You need to always be ready."

He sighed and started to pace a little. "Lois, I really loved you."

"Past tense noticed," she said tightly.

"Yeah, true. I really loved you once, but I don't even know when I fell out of love with you."

"Was it tonight? Because you know you have a son now and you feel you owe Chloe and him something?"

He stopped and nodded. "Somewhat, but this is about us. We're broken. Maybe we were never right to start. You hid things from me, about Christopher and about the birth control, but it's more than that."

"Like what?"

"What do you really see when you see me? You do realize I'm more than Kal-El and my powers. Hell, when I came to pry you out of our apartment for the wedding, you said I was godlike. Do you really think that?"

She looked away and didn't answer for a long while. "You can fly and run faster than anyone but Impulse and The Flash. You crush coal into diamonds and shoot lasers basically from your eyes. You're better than I am, than any of us are. I realized that early on, when I witnessed on the sly things you could do. Once I had your powers and could hear all the people begging for help, I realized how big your calling is. I wanted to be a part of that and I think I have been, especially with helping you hide and cultivate 'Clark Kent.'"

"I'm both, you know. Ever since Davis killed Jimmy, I haven't been able to decide which I am: Kal-El or Clark Kent. For the longest time, I thought I had to cut off human emotions, I had to circumscribe myself to just you as a tether and make an act of everything else. It's awful."

"So you're basically saying that I'm awful, that I did this to you?" she asked, glaring at him.

"No, I made that choice, but you helped foster it. I...I am that dorky farm kid to an extent, the one who loves his mom's apple pie, the one you had so much disdain for. I am a bit like Jaime even now. Some days I feel the furthest thing on Earth from a god or even a hero. I'm not perfect. Can you understand that?"

She shook her head. "You're better than the rest of us, and I've just been lucky to be near that. You can't tell me that just because you have a son now-one you don't even know except for Christmas cards and a few trips to Asia-that it changes your mission."

"No, I'm saying that I've felt hollow for a long time. I hate pretending I don't know you at work. I hate trying to beg you to marry me when it's clear you have massive hesitations and have for almost a decade. I'm just tired of hiding. I know I have to have a low profile out of uniform. I'm not a moron, but there has to be a better way than what I've become. I can't deal with putting on an act all the time."

"All the time?"

"Yes. I have to put on a bit more bravado to be Superman, have that booming voice, be a boy scout even if I'm fallible. When I'm Clark Kent, I play up the nerd to level ten, and no one knows me. I won't let anyone know me."

" I know you."

"If you knew me, you wouldn't have made decisions for me about things as big as our life together or children, whether it be Christopher in my life or a family of my own."

"Chloe sure as Hell didn't tell you anything."

"I know and I missed five years of his life-first word, first step, first time showing his strength-all the things I should have been there for, and I know I'll never get that back. I hate that and I resent her for it, believe me, but I can understand a bit that she was trying to save your feelings, that she wanted to give me what she thought I wanted."

"And that was?"

"A life with you. She stepped aside for me and Lana and then for me and you and, frankly, neither relationship made me truly happy."

"You think you'll get it with her when she lied to your face and kept you at arm's length for years?"

"I think I want to try. I...maybe this is naive, but I want to think that what we were able to make together in one night, that Christopher is more than by chance. I really want to believe that. I want a family; I want to feel human again after a decade of denying that. I can't do that with someone who thinks I'm a deity. I just can't."

Tears started to well up in her eyes and, when she spoke, it was very quiet, somber. "I love you."

He shook his head and bent down to kiss her cheek. "You love Kal-El and I'm more than that. I'm sorry, Lois."

Pulling back, she yanked the engagement ring she'd worn for eight years off her hand. "Then so am I. Goodbye, Clark. I...I think I'll ask Perry for my own chance to be a foreign correspondent, maybe even back to Kenya. I can't see you in the halls. I can't be near you and not feel horrible."

"Lois-"

"No, I can't. Clean break is what I need, like over the Blur and Zod. Like I said, goodbye."

With that she picked up her bag and marched out the door, leaving Clark to pass the ring between his fingers as he let himself wander, deep in thought.

George volunteered to take Christopher to breakfast, maybe a bit of curiosity egging him on. After all, civilians never saw Watchtower and, to be fair, it was a sight to behold between all the technological advances from the Lanterns and Thanagarians. He was being civil with her in front of her son and she appreciated that, that he could still give Christopher the support and kindness he deserved. Christopher hadn't been complicit in any of it, and he loved George as dearly as any son loved a father. He needed George too, which made everything she wanted with Clark all the more complicated.

Well that and Lois because, after all, she was always the back pocket girl, only on call when his relationships collapsed as she had been six years ago.

Speaking of her cousin, Chloe was hardly surprised when she found her knocking at her door. "Lois, hey," she said, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. "Do you want to come in."

Her cousin glared at her. "I think I should."

"Alright," she said standing back from the doorway and watching her cousin enter and take a seat on the foot of the bed. "So how does a conversation this unwanted start?"

"How about with 'I knew about Christopher because Dinah told me five years ago.'"

Chloe paled. "You did?"

Lois nodded. "I told Clark I knew the timing was never right for it to be George's, even if you claimed he was just six months old."

"You never said anything," Chloe said, struggling to keep her voice even. All that time in Asia, all that time away from the people she loved and the League. All of that was pointless because it didn't spare Lois's feelings worth a damn.

"I didn't want Clark to know. I didn't want Christopher in our lives. I mean, clearly he was a mistake."

Chloe bristled at that. "Excuse me?"

"Oh come on, Chlo. He was a fluke. Clark isn't supposed to have children-"

"He's not, huh? Says who?"

Lois rolled her eyes. "Clark says the same thing but I can feel it. Having children is a selfish thing. Can you really see him sitting through a school play or a parent-teacher conference when there's an Earthquake in Venezuela or a bomb threat in Paris? The world needs him more than he needs to see a mangled version of Oliver."

She shook her head at her cousin. "I was wrong about you. I wanted so badly for you to be the one because you were what Clark wanted more than anything. I knew that much. He was more gone on you than he'd even been on Lana."

"I know."

"And I wanted it to work because after I was a royal bitch in sophomore year and we salvaged our friendship, I wanted to be there for him no matter what. But he deserves more than what you've given him. He's human too, as far as the Kents raised him. He had a life of dates with you and with Lana before that. He had time to himself to do things with his dad when Mr. Kent was alive or to relax with Oliver, Bart and the others. He needs that. I...he needs his son, and I was wrong to hide him. I know that now."

"I don't really understand either of you when a calling's that important."

"I...once I could heal people. I was the one who saved you at Reeve's Dam."

"You're a meteor mutant?"

"Technically my DNA's probably still weird, but my power's been muted. I can't access it and haven't been able to for eleven years, but I know what it's like to have a power that you could use, theoretically, all the time to save lives and change fate. I had to learn I couldn't be someone who did that 24/7, that there was a time and place for it. When I started as Watchtower, I learned the hard way I couldn't be Big Sister and always work. It made me a person I didn't want to be, someone I loathed. It's why everyone switches off now and we don't have just one person. It's too much. People get exhausted, Lois."

"But Clark-"

"Even Clark, maybe especially him cause, frankly, he's pretty damn sensitive to everything. I...a lot of him is still that cut-off, isolated kid I met in his loft by first day in Smallville. I know you don't think I can't see Clark's destiny, believe me I've seen it in living color."

"What?"

"Fate helmet showed me, but the big thing is that I can't understand how you can't see him and what he needed all this time."

"Me neither because all this 'I want a normal life' is out of nowhere to me."

"Then you didn't really know him," Chloe replied.

"Do you know him now? You've barely talked to him in six years. You think you're what he needs? Bullshit. He's a different man now, Chlo."

"Then maybe he's not supposed to be cut-off like that. I...something horrible happened because I made a huge mistake over Davis and Clark never got over it. Maybe I can fix it now, even if it's a decade late. I owe him that."

"So you and Christopher just move into his life? After all this time?"

"I don't know. It's incredibly complicated but my whole relationship with Clark has been since I was thirteen years old. I want to try."

"How pleasant for you," Lois snarked.

"I never wanted to hurt you. I...you're not wrong exactly about Christopher. I don't think Clark meant what happened. I mean, I always thought he was using me to replace you and stop his loneliness for a night. I really still think that even if he claims otherwise."

"I see. Why'd you say yes?"

"Because you'd left him and, frankly, I have my weaknesses and he's mine the way Kryptonite is his. He asked and I couldn't say no, especially when I really believed you were over."

Lois nodded. "I was just tired of him begging for a ceremony. I needed a breather."

Chloe shook her head. "Then if you've had eight years of cold feet, it wasn't meant to be."

Lois stood and glared at her. "J'onn's taking me back to Metropolis. I am asking Perry to relocate to Kenya for a while. I...don't contact me. If I ever feel like talking to either of you , then I'll do it, though, I wouldn't hold your breath, Chlo. I thought we were sisters."

"If you really believed that," Chloe said, her tone even. "Then you'd never have started dating him, knowing how much he meant to me. You'd never have encouraged him to take my desk at the DP. So many things you wouldn't have done to step on me. Goodbye Lois, I hope you find what you're looking for."

With that, Lois stomped off to whatever destiny awaited her.


	8. Chapter 8

**8**

She found Clark on the bridge, monitoring alone, probably trying to lose himself in his shift. Chloe sat down next to him and was grateful no one else was on duty. Hell, maybe J'onn had arranged it, assuming she'd seek Clark out over the most awkward day ever. She had to give him extra Oreos as soon as she could get to a store (most likely incognito).

"Hey," she said, hoping he was still going to talk to her and that he didn't have mopes or regrets about Lois leaving.

"Hi," he said and some days it was hard to see him in uniform. To her, he always looked right in flannel or in his old red coat. Lois wasn't wrong about some things. She didn't know Superman as well as she could, and she didn't recognize him in his horrible three piece polyester suits and outdated trench coat. That just wasn't her Clark, but maybe she couldn't get him back.

"I...Lois told me she's leaving for Africa."

"Yeah, I am sorry about that."

Chloe's heart stopped for a second. "What?"

He turned away from the monitors to face her, his head held low. "I didn't mean for her to interrupt her career."

"Being a foreign correspondent doesn't stop that. It's how I got my Pulitzer after all."

He nodded, "I suppose. I still know she likes Metropolis. I figured she could stay where she was, but maybe it's better this way, the distance."

"Sometimes it gets perspective. I think traveling when I was 'dead' helped. I think meeting Bruce and Diana was a good growing experience for me. Being in Singapore, being loved, no matter how badly this marriage is turning out-par for my course, though-I needed not to be with you."

"That's encouraging," he snarked.

"No, I just meant you can be all-consuming. I needed to remember who I was and I found my reporter self again. Realized I could be more than second choice to someone, and I am actually number one to two people, and I'd not trade Christopher for anything."

"You could have stayed in Star City."

She considered that. "If I had known that Lois wasn't fooled by me moving or my marriage, I would have come home. I did all of it to spare both of you, but I think I just made your life worse and Lois was mad either way."

"That's something. I can't believe you had to go half a world away."

"Distance, even if you could be there in thirty seconds, I knew you'd respect my space. I needed that."

"Maybe I needed to grow too."

"Into someone with no friends? Someone cut off from human emotions outside of clinging to Lois?"

"I don't cling!"

"It's my fault too. I encouraged it. I told her the day you didn't get married, um, the first time, that she could be your anchor in your mission. I didn't realize how wrong I was. I...ever since my Lionel deal, I wanted to make everything up to you, be your friend."

"And not more?"

"I've always wanted more, no matter what, and no matter how hard I tried with Jimmy, Oliver, and George. I can't get you out of my system. I just...unrequited sucks for everyone and that's why I couldn't shove Christopher into that life and that situation. I don't...I know I'm last place to you. You made it clear at Lana's engagement party. I'm the 'back-pocket' girl."

"I was high you know."

She shrugged and forced herself not to cry. She wouldn't do that for him ever again. God knew she'd cried so hard when she realized she was pregnant and in an impossible situation and, again, when she was sure that Christopher had inherited his father's powers and she'd have to raise a Kryptonian alone. Not for Clark, not ever again.

"You were honest. You're always honest on red Kryptonite. I told Lois that I know you had to be thinking of her when you were...when we slept together."

"I swear I wasn't."

She laughed. "I've never been good enough, Clark. The fact Christopher exists doesn't really change that. We can work something out, but I get that it's for him, more than because you love me most, and that's okay, I got used to that fact long ago, that we're friends and nothing more."

"I...would it be wrong to say that that's not true. I...I think I got more equal footing during that Zod year. I think I came out of being so angry and violent, but by the time I did, you and Oliver were pretty much inseparable and, yeah, I knew Lois had a weird Blur worshipping thing and was dumb enough to fall for Zod's tricks, but she was all I had. Then you were dead and left me and I hurt so badly for that, for the loss of all our trust from Davis to your return to save us, I just...Lois was like you."

Chloe snorted and stood up. "Clark, I don't think I'll ever believe that. I saw the future and you two were on the marriage path when I left. I saw how happy you were at your engagement party, magic champagne or not. I know how crushed you were when she left you. I'm not blind and, Christopher or no, that doesn't change a thing."

Clark nodded and picked his head up to stare at her with all the power and grace Superman commanded. "I still told her it was over; I still never felt happy with her and all the walls I put up. That doesn't change a thing."

"Still," Chloe said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. "I don't know if I'd never gotten pregnant if you'd still be with me or if it's all duty, obligation and your personal desire for a child, something Lois denied you. I need to go collect Christopher from the cafeteria and we all need to figure out our next move in order to elude Flynn and Uncle Sam, the metaphorical one."

"Chlo-"

She sighed and withdrew her hand. "Never mind, Clark, it doesn't matter anyway."

Clark was disappointed that Christopher wasn't sitting around the conference table. When he asked where his son was, besides getting a death glare from George, he was informed that Impulse and Christopher were hanging in his room and playing with his Warrior Angel collection. It was better that way, Clark knew, because there was nothing they'd discuss that five year old ears should hear. Still, now that he knew of Christopher's existence, now that he'd held his son, it was addictive. He wanted to hold him close and relish being a father.

Now was not that time.

Now was the time to figure out exactly how they'd get out of the mess Chloe and her family were in. Honestly, Clark didn't have a clue how to remedy that either. "So," he said, swiveling his chair a little to face Chloe and George (who were separated by several seats). "What do you want to do?"

George scowled. "What? You and Wonder Woman and The Martian Manhunter don't have some scheme going? You all don't have a top secret mission to take out Flynn and Company and then fly off with my wife and son?"

Clark stiffened at that, because, frankly, hurt feelings aside, he'd considered that plan already. "I have no intention of ex-ing you out."

"That's news to me," George said. "I know you're supposed to be about truth and justice, but since I've been cuckolded, I don't feel like you're all that honorable."

"I didn't know."

"I didn't tell him," Chloe said. "We went through that."

"Because you've been so honest this far, Ms. Sullivan," George bit out and it gave Clark the weirdest flash back to when Lionel did it.

"I really didn't know. Either you can believe that or think that I was swooping in behind your back to see Chloe and Christopher, whichever you prefer. It's moot now because your lives as you knew them are over." Chloe looked down at her lap, and George sagged.

"I know that much," he answered. "I was never military but I worked a long time with Flynn, and I know how he thinks. He's not even the most opportunistic military man I've come up against when working for embassies. I can't even imagine what they'd do with Christopher."

Chloe paled and gripped the table ledge. "Nothing good. It'd be like you and Pierce all over again, Clark."

"Pierce?"

Clark shrugged. "I've been caught once or twice before. Once was a Kryptonite cage and it was far from pleasant. If Supergirl hadn't saved me, I probably would have died. I'm not even worried about that part of it, to be honest."

"I would be," George said.

"No," Chloe said, shaking her head. "The big problem is not experimentation," and she had to swallow with some effort to continue, "the big issue is training or brainwashing. He'd be the best soldier ever with his powers: bullet proof, fast, heat vision. I won't let him grow up like that."

George nodded. "I'm on board with hiding him and with going underground. My career is over either way after what happened in Singapore. I won't let him become government property."

"So this is about your job?" Chloe said, her tone taking on a hard edge.

"No, it's about being realistic too. There wouldn't be anything for me if we even were suicidal enough to go back to Singapore. I'm just with you. I...am I with both of you?"

Clark frowned. "What does that mean?"

George sighed. "How big a factor are you going to be in our lives now, Superman...Clark...whoever?"

"I don't know. I was hoping for however much Chloe was going to let me."

"And what about me? What about what I want? I was there when she was pregnant, and you were an ocean or two away. I was there for everything in Christopher's life. Since you're the superhero, you'll just slide in and be the amazing dad?"

Clark looked at Chloe who turned away from him. "I just want to be allowed in his life. He's going to have it harder than I did because even though he's only five, he's going to have to learn how to hide not just his powers but who he used to be. He'll need all of us."

"But Superman most of all?" George said bitterly.

"All of us. I am not going to force his father out of the picture. For lack of a better explanation, my birth father did that with my dad and it got him killed. My dad meant more to me than almost anyone and..." he said, trailing off. He couldn't explain all of it anymore, couldn't think about it. It was what Brainiac Five said was where his corruption started. He'd put it behind him after the trip through time with the Legion ring, and definitely after burying his father's watch. He no longer could afford to think about Jonathan Kent.

It hurt too much.

Suddenly, he realized Chloe was studying him. It was his turn to look down at his lap and avoid eye contact.

She nodded. "I made this mess and you care about Christopher more than anything. He deserves to have a family. I just don't know how we do it."

"What? Do I get to be weekend dad? How exactly do we split this. Hell, where do we go?" George asked. "Foreign countries sound nice in theory and after you created Elizabeth Cochran from scratch, I don't doubt you could fake the right social security numbers and passports. Do you think it's best for Christopher though?"

Clark sighed. "He didn't grow up in America. I...a Chinese-speaking country?"

"That's where we started," Chloe said. "I think for all the talk of foreign places that I want to come home. I'd like to go to Metropolis or Star City or Gotham. You know I have friends in all places, people from the League who can protect me."

His eyes widened. "You mean you'd come home to Metropolis and let me protect you?"

George let out a long breath. "Yes, please pass me to the side. I'll just let you two lovebirds continue ruining my life."

"Your records are all for Elizabeth Cochran, right?" Clark prodded.

"We've established that," she said.

"There's no tie with you to 'Chloe Sullivan?'" Clark asked.

"No. She died in 2010 and all her records say as much. She doesn't exist. Why?"

"Because I can think of a place even better to hide than Metropolis or even with The Batman in Gotham."

"Oh is there a place to move in with Wonder Woman?" George snarked.

"No, but I had something else in mind."


	9. Chapter 9

9

Granville had been a fixture of Chloe's life, but one she'd ignored for years, since Grammy Sullivan had passed away. She and her mom had been trapped in a car visiting her grandmother the day of the first meteor shower and that's when her life had been irrevocably altered, where she'd become a meteor mutant. Despite no longer having active powers, it had been a traumatizing period in her life and one that had changed her views of the afflicted in Smallville. It was a relief not to have the fear of dying, well more than any mortal, but it was also scarring to have done it twice to save those she loved. It was a price she'd gladly paid but something she couldn't bear to think of too closely.

Stepping into the little home in the suburbs, not unlike her home as a teenager in Luthor Estates (until Lionel had revoked it), but it was set in a nice patch of land with a high fenced backyard and even a small barn on the outskirts of her acreage behind the home. It was a suburban style house on the edge of farmland, one, which she would have no idea what to do with. Still, she could see the advantage to a place mostly quiet, with the neighbors close enough for emergencies but not too close, with a large fence hiding her son's speed. Hell, even the barn could be fun, something she was used to, that would be so very much like father and like son.

Chloe frowned. "Clark, George is in a Talon apartment."

He nodded. "They turned it into a triplex so he has the basement. It hasn't been a cafe in a long time, since Lana went off the radar."

"Oh."

"Yeah," he said, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. "But we didn't want you in a town where people would recognize you. I know you 'died,' and now you have a brunette makeover, complete with extensions, and Christopher went redhead, but it's still a case of better safe than sorry. Granville's only thirty minutes away. You'll be able to visit George as often as you like, or, um, as often as he'll agree to for Christopher's sake."

Chloe sighed. "Yeah, making messes and alienating the men in her life is like the Chloe Sullivan tradition."

Clark shrugged at that. "You did what you thought was best to protect mine and Lois's feelings and our son. That matters for something."

"But I did it wrong and you both hate me."

" I don't hate you. In point of face, I could never hate you. I'm just upset because I missed so much of our son's life. I explained that. George is pissed, but he seems like he really loves Christopher."

"He does. He's a great father."

Clark stiffened. "And I appreciate that cause I felt that way about Jonathan Kent."

"You mean your dad," she said, sighing. "Just because Brainiac Five and the Legion said his funeral 'corrupted' you, I call bullshit. It hurt you, wounded you, but he was a good man and you loved him. I think what really set you off on that year of scorching buildings was Davis killing Jimmy."

"I don't want to talk about that."

"Why not? We should talk about it. That was my other big beyond humongous fuck-up. I trusted that Davis was more than a shell, that he had a soul, and then he betrayed us all and Jimmy, Henry, whoever really suffered for it. It wasn't your fault and it wasn't because you were 'too human.'"

Clark's grip on the handles of the suitcases became dangerously tight until the handles almost cracked. "We're not talking about this. I'm here to take you into the house that Oliver helped provide in honor of your years of service to the League, even as a consultant. You deserve more than an apartment. I knew that Singapore was crammed and Christopher's only known an apartment life. I think this would be good for him."

Chloe nodded and, taking out her new key, opened the door and waited for Clark to pass through the door and followed him. She gasped at the full array of furniture and even electronics that she saw before her. "Clark, the League didn't have to."

"We all wanted to. Even if you're barely a consultant now, you're always going to be one of us and we take care of our own."

"And that doesn't include you being honest with me?" she asked, pulling the suitcases out of his grip and rolling them into the living room by the sofa. It was black. She'd have preferred green of all things. But beggars...

"I'm not talking about Jimmy dying, ever. I was weak and now I'm not."

"But you'll take a few ties to humanity; you'd try it with Lois even if it didn't help. Now you'll try it with me because we have a son. You say you want a life that's not just 24/7 Superman and being a superhero but, at the same time, you won't face something in your past worse than your dad's death. You won't let me talk about what I need. Maybe you're not the only one who has been running from that day or who needs some catharsis."

"You know, let's just go see Christopher. We did leave him out exploring the backyard."

"At least there's a fence," she riposted. "I'm serious. You can't bury the past. I tried that by erasing myself." She brought a hand to his shoulder and tried not to show her disappointment when he pulled away. "Clark, we have to face up to what killed Jimmy sometime and you have to realize that your human past, that it's okay to embrace Martha and Jonathan again."

"Chloe, I said let's go double check on our son," he said, stepping ahead of her toward the backyard.

"Mom! It's so cool and there's a tire swing in back and there's all these kittens and I like it!" Christopher called running, still in human speed, into her arms.

Clark was blinking back at him. "Wow."

"You didn't know this place had strays?" she asked, smirking.

"No, he talks even faster than you do."

"And only in exclamations," she replied. "He gets carried away."

"Imagine that," he riposted, kneeling down, trying to get at Christopher's eye level. "Hi."

"Uncle Clark, thank you for letting us visit your house," Christopher said politely. "I never knew your farm was so cool. I mean there are squirrels!"

Chloe smiled at Clark's confusion over something so mundane. "They don't have those in Singapore. They don't have a lot of things, actually. It's a whole flora and fauna new adjustment."

"Oh," he replied, turning his focus back to their son. "Christopher, it's okay to call me just 'Clark,' like I said before, and this isn't my house, exactly, but I, um, will be visiting a lot."

"In the cool place we saw with the Justice League?"

Clark nodded. "Exactly. I'd prefer that."

He frowned and looked up at Chloe. "Mom, can I?"

"Clark, why drop the 'uncle?'"

"Because I'm not really but I didn't have a better title, considering our situation. I just don't want to be called 'uncle' anymore. So just Clark works for me."

Christopher put up bigger puppy eyes for her. "Mom, please, it's very cool."

"Alright, but just for Clark. You're not going to call me 'Chloe' or your dad 'George' or anything like that."

"And not Aunt Lois?" he asked and Chloe flinched.

Kneeling down alongside Clark, she took her son's hand. "Baby, Aunt Lois isn't going to be around for a while. She went to take an assignment all the way in Africa. She left when we spent that week at the Watchtower."

"Oh. But Clark's still here."

Clark swallowed. "That's true but Aunt Lois is going to be gone for a long time."

"Did you fight? She was mad when she woke me up," Christopher said.

Chloe could see Clark figuring out the best response, and she wondered how much it pained him to talk about her cousin. "We decided it was best not to be engaged anymore. That's why she's not in Metropolis and you won't be seeing her for a while."

Christopher considered that and, unsolicited, gave Clark a hug. "I'm sorry."

Clark let out a deep breath, closed his eyes, and squeezed Christopher back. It was a mix of endearing and a bit annoying to see him take comfort from their son. Although he had to be thinking about Lois, Chloe had a feeling the hug also had a lot to do with the embrace she'd seen him and Christopher in the Watchtower. She wished she was a part of it and then chastised herself for being jealous of a five year old.

"It's alright," Clark said, pulling away. Chloe took a cue to stand back up. Unlike Clark, her legs did get that needle feeling in them from being in one position for too long. "But we have something very important to tell you."

"Is this about why mommy has brown hair now or mine's red? And when's daddy coming to the farm? I want to show him the tire swing too!"

Chloe closed her eyes and steadied herself. She'd earned that. Reaching out, she ruffled her son's newly red locks. "Honey, daddy will be visiting later. He's staying downtown in Smallville. We can even go to see where he is in a few minutes."

"Why isn't he with us at the farm?"

"Sweetheart, mommy and daddy decided something that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with something I did," she explained.

"What?"

She took in a deep breath and refused to look at Clark. This was between her and Christopher. "We're not going to be married anymore, but," she said, hugging him close as he started to cry. "Daddy's going to live about thirty minutes away and visit you a lot. He's not going too far from here at all, I promise. It'll be a lot like before. He'll take you to breakfasts and come over here and play with you and he'll have a lot more time too because he won't work long hours at an embassy."

Christopher stepped back and looked between her and Clark. "We're staying here?"

"Christopher," Clark started and she nodded to let him continue. "those men who found you and almost took you from your mom will keep looking for you, especially in Singapore. You can't go back there and you have to be very careful and hide. It's why you and your mom look different."

"And why that lady in the top hat did something so daddy in the mirror looks weird?"

"Yes, baby," Chloe replied, grateful Zatanna skills had greatly improved and that she could make it so she, Clark, and Christopher could still see George as he'd been. She didn't think Christopher could deal with a change that drastic on top of all of that. "We have to stay here. I'm sorry."

"I don't want to. I want to go home. I like the farm, but not to stay. It's too cold here and what about bak chang? What about the New Year?"

Clark glanced at her, confused. She knew why. Christopher was listing foods and festivals because she hadn't let him go to school yet. He'd been old enough to start the equivalent of kindergarten but she hadn't trusted him with his strength yet, even if he'd had two years to practice.

"We can find things like that here. Metropolis has a big Asian community. I'm sure there's a part that's like Singapore. I...we have to do this. It's not safe."

"Why?" he asked, eyes full of tears and Chloe had rarely felt lower in her life. "Why do they want me?"

Chloe looked to Clark. "I don't really know how to tell you this."

Clark swallowed and took the lead. "Christopher, I know you love your dad."

"He's the best dad ever."

Clark flinched but continued. "I know and I respect that, believe me I do, but I'm your father."

Christopher furrowed his brow in a gesture that was pure Clark. "Mommy?"

She nodded. "I left America after I realized it and then I married your dad and didn't tell him. That's why he's mad at me. He's not mad at you. He'd never be mad at you, but I messed up a lot. I'm sorry."

Christopher rubbed his eyes and hiccupped. "If Clark's my real daddy then I'm..."

Clark nodded and squeezed Christopher's shoulder. "You're 'Superman's' son. That's why the bad men want you. One day you'll be able to do everything I can but right now you're still little and you can't protect yourself. That's why we're on the farm and you're staying with me. I'm sorry that you can't go home. I'm sorry that your dad isn't living here too and I'm sorry you're like me."

Christopher kept crying silently, occasionally sniveling to himself. "I'd like to go see my dad now. Can I?"

Clark stood up and she could tell from the hunch of his shoulders how upset he was. "Of course, Christopher. Let me and your mom put your suitcases upstairs and I'll take you over, like a blink."

"Not fast enough," he said, as he turned to the house, his little back shaking as he took in huge gulps of air.

Chloe'd had never felt worse, even after her deal with Lionel had come out or when she'd had to fake her death and leave Clark behind.

It was cumbersome to carry more than one person in superspeed. Clark could do it, but, for once, he relied on the more mundane forms of transport. He was taking the modest Honda that the League had also provided for Chloe. It wasn't flashy and fit in well with the rest of suburbia and the middle class. Ollie could have and probably would have gotten her something nice, sporty, Italian, and completely impractical. He had a lot of his own guilt to deal with, Clark knew, because Oliver Queen had fallen for Dinah before his "marriage" with Chloe had been annulled. He'd not cheated, but it was obvious to almost everyone in the League how smitten they were with each other. He and Chloe called it quits before it could escalate and hurt all three of them.

Except for George, who seemed like a genuinely nice guy, Chloe had terrible taste in men. Clark counted himself in that mix because he'd never treated her with the respect and appreciation she deserved, nor had he considered her feelings enough, even if he hadn't always returned them. But Jimmy, Davis, Oliver, and an assortment of meteor stalkers had all broken her down over the years. Oddly it was Jimmy and Oliver, normal non-psychotic men, who had hurt her probably the most. Both men's attitudes had shredded her paltry self-esteem, which Clark knew he'd helped beat down during his Lana chasing and by using her as what she had once called his "krypto-hag."

What he wanted was to make it up to her, to make up everything he'd missed with his son as well. However, he didn't understand why he had to face his biggest mistakes for that. He could build a home outside of Smallville, he had for years. The last thing he needed was to face the farm or anything else. His mistakes were behind him and there was nothing he could do, literally, to change them. He knew better now than to fuck with the timeline and, even if he were tempted some days, the Fortress couldn't and Kara had taken his ring with her disappearance to God knew when.

"Clark?" Chloe asked, as they took the exit off Route One for Smallville. "You've been awful quiet. Are you alright. I...I know I pressed too hard. I do that sometimes."

He shook his head. "No Chlo, I'm fine." He looked into the rear view mirror and shook his head. Christopher was quiet but the tears were still drying on his cheek. "Buddy...um, Christopher, I'm really sorry about all of this, but we're almost to where your dad is. Then you can spend the whole day with him if you want. I promise you can visit every day if he says yes. Maybe he can help keep you after kindergarten."

It wouldn't be hard for George to do as much. He had a night job for eleven at night to eight am at the Queen Industries Fertilizer Plant, which had been set up in order to revitalize Smallville some years back. George would be the night guard at a salary on par, by a miracle, with what he had at the embassy. (Or by Oliver Queen, sometimes it was the same difference.)

Clark ignored the pain that came with the thought of George still spending hours a day with his son. He couldn't be petty or jealous. This was all about what made Christopher happy and safe. Safe they had covered between him keeping an eye on him and the undercover move to Granville. Happy was harder when the family his son had had for his whole life was torn asunder and a new person was trying to ingratiate himself into his life.

His son sniffled again and let out a shuddering breath. "I can see daddy that much?"

Clark nodded. "Promise. You still have both mommy and your daddy. I...you just have me too. Like I said I want to be with you in your life, but you don't have to...like I said, call me 'Clark' because that's all you have to do."

He hoped that meant right now, but if that was for always, he'd have to learn to live with that.

Christopher rubbed his eyes again and they were so red. Clark was glad they were passing onto main street and he was about to pull into the lot behind The Talon. "Okay, but I can see daddy?"

Clark flinched and was relieved a little when Chloe patted his arm. "Yes, baby, we'll work out something to you can probably see your daddy every day on weekdays and on Saturdays."

"What happens to Sundays?"

She smiled and twisted back to look at him. "I hoped you'd stay with me and Clark at our place in Granville. You'd like to hang out with your old mom too, right?"

"Of course, mommy. I just want daddy right now."

Clark sighed and turned off the engine. "Well buddy, we're definitely doing that."

They got out of the car in silence, slipping through the back door and down into the basement. Clark noticed Chloe trailing behind them. "Chloe?"

"I...Clark can you take him down and ask George how he wants to split things up. If babysitting while I'm working teaching English and doing after school newspaper club at Granville High is something he can do?"

Clark frowned at her. "You could come ask him yourself."

She shook her head. "Davis was down here. Sometimes I still have nightmares. Even if it's been changed over the years. Going down there? I can't."

"Alright," he said, taking Christopher's hand in the dim stairway, grateful his son's fear of tripping made him amenable to touching him. "I'll go down with him. No worries."

"Thank you," she replied, letting the door shut behind them.

"Uncl...Clark, why isn't mommy coming?" Christopher asked and Clark was terrified that he might start crying again.

"Because she used to live here and sometimes it makes her sad. I'll drop you off with your dad, no worries."

"Okay."

When they got downstairs, George was sitting on a modest plaid sofa, drinking a Coke. He brightened immediately and set down his drink. "Come here, son."

Christopher smiled and ran into his father's arms. "I missed you!"

George held Christopher tight and rubbed his hair. "I love you."

"Love you too," Christopher said, pulling back. "I missed you too and you have to see our house and it's big and it has cats in the back and it has a tire swing and maybe mom can get a pool like the big ones our neighbor has and it's got a fence and-"

"Whoa, tiger, you're going pretty fast."

Clark stood at the side, pretending he wasn't there. He spotted something intimate between a father and son, and, sadly, he wasn't a part of it. It wasn't his place. Maybe one day, but today was certainly not it. He'd not earned it.

Christopher continued, grinning. "It's really nice and there are squirrels and I have a big room I bet and it's got floors and things, like two and an attic, and it's sooo big, way bigger than in Singapore and you're gonna love it!"

"I...I live here now, tiger. Your mommy told you that, right?"

"But you could live with us."

George shook his head. "We really can't do that anymore, your mom and me."

"Why not?"

"Your mom did something very bad and I can't stay with her, but I still love you a lot and you can visit any time."

"But-"

"Did your mom tell you the same thing?" George prodded.

"Yeah but you can still come. If I ask-"

George sighed and set Christopher back on the floor. "I really can't. It's not about you. It's about mommy and I can't forgive her for what she did. We're still family, tiger, but we live apart now. It'll be okay."

Christopher's brows furrowed in a gesture Clark recognized from his own face in the mirror. It was eerie to see it on someone who so clearly had Chloe's features. "Clark said he was my dad too, is that true?"

"Yeah, he's your dad and I love you but technically we're not related."

"But you're my dad and Clark...he's my uncle, kind of."

"Maybe that's a way to think of it for a while."

"I...Superman's my dad and that's how I have powers but you're my real dad and I am gonna spend lots of time here?"

George hugged him. "Yes, it's like that. Hey, tiger, why don't you go back to the car for a minute. Then we'll watch movies together. I have Disney."

"Yay!"

"But first I have to talk to Clark."

"Okay," Christopher said, kissing his dad on the cheek and rushing back up the steps to Chloe, ignoring George's warnings to be careful and go slowly on the stairs. It was so parental and Clark had no idea how to be like that, even if he wanted to be. Hell, he'd only seen Christopher a half dozen or so times in his life in person. He was barely "the fun uncle."

"Clark, how you doing?" George asked, his voice thick with bitterness.

He stepped forward but didn't sit on the sofa or in the recliner in the corner. "Chloe really was hoping you'd babysit him from three to about seven while she's at work and commuting in from Granville. I know you'd have to be up after a long night at work, but she wants you to have that and to have Saturdays with him. I mean, he can sign up for something to do then, maybe."

"He can't do cub scouts or soccer, Clark, and you know that. He's way too strong for other children."

"I know, but maybe he'll learn to like museums, I don't know. There are things to do on a Saturday that isn't athletics. I'm sorry he's come from me and that his powers are mine. Or vice-versa. It's hard, but he can learn."

"Well it is too late for him to be mine. I admit that. I just...fuck, why do I have to compete with goddamn Superman."

Clark sighed and shrugged. "Why do I have to compete with the man who was there when he was born all the way through taking him to special breakfasts at a place as cool as an embassy. It works both ways. You shared his best moments, and I didn't get that. He loves you so much, cried a ton when he realized you wouldn't be in his house. I do not want to steal him from you. I swear that I don't."

"Funny how my wife... ex-wife wants you now, maybe she always did. It makes sense why you never visited, makes so so much sense. I mean, she'd have avoided you, no matter what because she couldn't kill those feelings, especially not with Christopher reminding her of you twenty four hours a day."

"Then all three of us have our insecurities, but we can't compete for his love like a game. I'd like to; I feel as territorial over him as you do, as jealous, but we're the adults here and he's between us. Maybe we didn't mean for this to happen, but it did. I...will you take care of him and you can get Saturdays and him for every other Holiday. Like Christmas Eve with him and we'd get Christmas Day, but you can have Thanksgiving Day and we'll do our dinner the night before. We can make this work, but I need you to do this with me."

"For him," George said, standing and shaking Clark's hand. "I'd do anything."

Clark noticed the way George stood straighter, the resolute way he jutted out his chin. Not a lot of people looked "Superman" in the eye. George wasn't fazed by him at all, even while knowing Clark's true nature. This impressed him. He believed George's word that he'd always care for Christopher as much as Clark, himself, or Chloe did. That made Clark sad for himself, for that petty part of him that wanted all of his son's attention.


	10. Chapter 10

10

"Nice," Chloe said, following Clark into what had been his apartment. "I expected it to have less bare walls and more pics of you and Lois actually. Oh and furniture, definitely furniture," she added, gesturing to the bean bag chairs left still on the floor. Most of the walls were a distorted color of blue, darker in some rectangular patches where art and other things had been.

Clark sighed and set his jacket on the kitchen counter. "Lois must have packed up during the week we were at the 'Tower and making arrangements. It's sort of fitting."

"How so?"

"I was gone for three weeks in some Phantom Zone time loop when she decorated this place to start. By the time I got home, it was pretty much as it was the whole seven years we lived here." He sighed and pulled out two glasses and a bottle of orange soda. "I don't think this was ever opened so it won't be flat."

Chloe shook her head and scrunched up her nose in a gesture Clark found adorable. "Um, I'll pass." With that, she plopped on a bean bag chair, and Clark was a bit disappointed that she was wearing jeans and not a skirt. "It's definitely a minimalist look, Clark. She can't have possibly taken everything to Africa with her. I figure she'd pack light there."

"Yeah, but it was stuff...she bought most of it and I did rent so I assume it's in storage for when it's her time, yanno?"

Chloe nodded. "So you have the plain life of a monk, one with Wolverine bean bags. It probably works for you."

"I'll be moving out too. I need to find a cheaper place on one salary in Metropolis and get some simple furniture. I'm not home that much and when I get home from patrol, I crash until it's time for work. Hell, I might not even waste the money on a bed."

Chloe quirked an eyebrow at him in a gesture he remembered from high school. All snark. "Do I want to know?"

Pouring himself some soda and flopping onto the Sharks bean bag, Clark shrugged. "Meh, I float in my sleep. Have for a while. I guess one day Christopher will too. Not much of a point for having a bed save if..."

"...someone's with you," she finished, and even her ears were flushed red.

"Chloe, you really don't have to make small talk by asking about my life with Lois. In case you hadn't noticed, I dumped her. She put her stuff in storage, and now she's living in Kenya. It's a done deal."

"You could fly to Africa in under a minute," she said glumly.

He set down his drink and took her hand in his, grateful when she let him. "I won't."

"Because I'm the mother of your child."

"You say that like it's a bad thing or a chore, like I used you as if you were a brood mare. As far as I remember, it was something we both wanted."

She sighed and squeezed his hand, still hesitating to withdraw her own. "I know. I just want things to be better than they are."

"They can be. I...we can figure this whole thing out. We don't have to get it right all at once or anything. I mean, you have to adjust to a whole new life. I have to move, and Christopher and George have to find their way as well. It's a lot that's shifting around here. I just thought you'd like to know I'll wait."

"Because I'm-"

He leaned forward and kissed her, cutting off her objections. "Not to sound harsh but if you even think of saying 'third choice' or 'just Christopher's mother,' I'll speed you to Antarctica and leave you there."

"That's charitable," she snarked, sweeping a dark lock behind her ear.

"Chloe, we can do this. I want to do this."

"I do too. I do, but I just hate being third. I know that's petty but this voice keeps telling me that if Lana were restored to normal tomorrow or if Christopher had turned out to be Lois's, I'd be kicked to the curb."

"But for all her talk, in ten years, Lana's never done a thing for the League or to save the world, even against Zod or the Kandorians. If she really were a hero, she'd have done something. She just wanted me to be human with added powers for, um..."

"Bed breaking?"

He blushed. "Yeah."

"And earthquakes?"

"It's not worth reliving all of it, but, yes, she liked that part of it."

"And Lois?"

"Dream future from a helmet," he said, rolling his eyes. "And I cannot believe that's part of why you ran. You could have told me!"

"Ahem."

"Anyway, that aside, she won't let me be Clark and I want to be myself again, I do."

"So 'one was too hot and one was too cold and-'"

"Chloe is just right and I was a galactically large moron not to see it."

"I'll work on not feeling like the runner up in the Clark Affection Sweepstakes."

He snorted and kissed her again, glad she let him do it. "You make it sound like I'm some kind of prize to be won or there was a competition with you three."

"There was always one between me and Lana, and I knew the day of the senior year carnival that there'd be one between me and Lois. I saw then what it took you all about five years to figure out, that there was an attraction there."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry you had to feel like that."

"Well, like Lana said, 'it's just Chloe.' I'm sort of the always the bride's maid and never the bride, you know?"

Clark sighed. "Not this time."

"Alright, I'll think about believing that."

"Better than flat-out rejection," he said. "I sort of feel I struck out with Christopher. Today all he wanted was to go to see George, and, believe me, I was willing to leave him in The Talon basement. It just sucks to realize I have what I wanted most and he's not...I know I can't be his dad-dad, but one day I'd like to have him feel he can be relaxed with me. I know he liked me as his 'uncle' in the Watchtower, let me read to him, but I really can't see him ever letting me in his life the way George is. I came late ."

Chloe sniffled and finally withdrew her hand. "I made you do that. He might never be with you the way he is with George or you were with Jonathan. I think you can be in his life, you just have to carve out your own niche."

Clark snorted. "It's funny. George is jealous of me."

"Why wouldn't he be? You're the biological father."

"And Superman," Clark finished, hating Lois's moniker for him. He'd certainly never choose to coin something so egotistical. "It's really not as glamorous as it seems."

"Puh-lease. I was there in Watchtower with all of you and I still know all your growing pains, Diana and Bruce included from my year abroad. I know it's not what you assume it is, but to most people you're it. You're the guy ."

"The ironically All-American Hero."

"No one's more Kansasian than you, admit it," she said. "Or, I guess, the Clark I knew was like that."

"Point, Chlo?"

"George has a lot to live up to in your reputation and in your contributions to Christopher's life."

"And he was there for the first five years and there's nothing I can ever do to change that. He's the one Christopher will love the way I...how I felt about Jonathan until I worked so hard to embrace Jor-El."

Chloe stiffened at that. "Uh-huh. Remind me to travel to the 31st Century and kick Brainiac Five's ass, 'k?"

"Why?"

"We'll get to that. If you're going to really prove you love me and that you want me, I have stipulations."

"Intriguing," he said, still huffing a bit. "I just want Christopher to like me."

"He won't like you best. He'll probably learn as he gets older to like you and George in different ways, and that's how it is. I respect that you both are trying and didn't go all Alpha male for very long. It's super awkward but if you were both hating on each other in front of him or even in private, it'd be about impossible."

"I want him to be okay. I don't hate George; I barely know George. I just...I want ," he finished, floundering.

"Don't we all, Clark, don't we all? However, as far as Christopher goes, I think I have an idea."

"And what about you?" he asked, staring down at her and licking his lips slightly.

"We'll get to that, but how do you feel about passengers?"

"Huh?"

"You'll see."

With George's permission, Clark actually took the first Tuesday that both Chloe and Christopher were in school as the after school care provider. Chloe was getting into the running of the school newspaper and said she wouldn't be back to her new farm in Granville before six thirty. So now Clark had time alone with his son.

Who didn't look all that excited.

Christopher was sitting on the sofa (and that was still more furniture than Clark had as he was searching for a new place), staring half-heartedly at cartoons and, occasionally, munching on the bowl of Cap'n Crunch that he'd conned Clark into letting him have as a snack. Sugar was sugar and Clark figured it must be okay if Chloe gave it to him for breakfast, despite dubious nutritional value.

"Uh, so," Clark said, rocking back and forth a little on the balls of his feet by the TV.

"So what?" his son asked, setting down his bowl.

"Well did you have a good second day of school? Your mom said that you hadn't been before."

Christopher considered that and nodded. "I had to stay home because I'm so strong and mom was afraid I'd hurt someone. I guess that's good so I don't miss my school from Singapore. I never had one."

Clark frowned and sat next to his son on the couch. "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"I...I explained to your dad the other day that you get that stuff from me. Being strong and not being able to get hurt, that's me."

"But if I wasn't like that then the bomb would have exploded me! It's not so bad."

"I know, but you missed things like kindergarten until now or doing sports or cub scouts."

"What's a cub scout?"

Clark sighed. "Right, foreign consulate experience. It's a club where boys go hiking and camping and earn badges and things."

"Oh, camping?"

"Yeah, it's an outdoor thing."

Christopher shuddered. "Mommy says camping is all bugs and cold. I'll pass."

"You'd prefer video games or the computer?"

"Of course!" he said, grinning.

Clark nodded. "You are Chloe Sullivan's child. No, I mean it could be fun, but I guess you and me or you and your dad can do a tent thing in your backyard some day. I just know it has to be hard not to let anyone know you're so strong."

"I practiced since I was three. That's like two whole years, and that's like forever," he said. "Half my life!"

Clark smiled a little, amused at how many times Christopher exclaimed something. Such were the wonders of being five years old. "Then you have practiced a long time how to be strong."

"And hide," he admitted.

"Yeah and that's why I'm sorry."

"Mom said that you didn't know about me. I know there's not a stork or a cabbage patch."

"You're five!"

"I don't know how it works, just that you need a mommy and a daddy, but I know you need both ."

"That's true," Clark said, blushing a little.

"So if you didn't know, then it's not really your fault. You and mommy...I just happened, I guess. That's okay cause I like things mostly. Mommy taught me how to not break things and how not to let people know even my real daddy."

Clark flinched when Christopher gave that moniker to George. "About that-"

"Everyone says that daddy's still my daddy. You just said that," he defended.

"Yeah, I did say that on Saturday. I know, and I did mean it. I just was wondering if there was room for me in your life too. I get what it's like to have a dad, I did mean that too. I was wondering if maybe...we share a lot of things-our powers, our secrets-I thought we could start bonding over that."

"I'm not just powers. Mommy always says that."

"And she's right," Clark said softly. "It's not good for anyone. I had a long time where that's how I thought about it."

"When you were a kid too?"

"No, actually, about the last ten years."

"Wow! That's twice as much as me."

"Yeah. I'm not proud of it, exactly. I just thought it had to be all about my abilities and about saving people."

"Well, duh, that's what Superman does. He saves people. I mean, you do."

Clark laughed. "I get me and him confused too. Yeah, I do save people a lot with my abilities and because I'm Superman, but 'Clark Kent' needs to have things too. It took me a long, long time to learn that and I hope you never have to do it the hard way like I did."

"How did you learn it?"

Clark wrapped an arm around his son's shoulders, grateful when he didn't shrink or shy away. Squeezing gently he added, "Because I care about you and your mommy very much and I want to be family to both of you as much as I can. I mean all four of us, however we do it, you and your mommy, George and me. Having a family after my dad died and my mom moved away and got so busy...it's something I wanted so bad, but then I thought I shouldn't have it."

"Why?"

"Because I thought I had to save people all the time, but we're not gods. We're not all powerful even if we want to be and we can't save everyone. We need to have lives."

"Do I get to be a superhero? Can I have a cape and everything?" his son ask, eyes glittering.

Clark laughed and relaxed his grip a little. "You don't have to commit to anything at five, but I think we can find you a cape. I think we can find something better than just a red sheet or towel even if you ask your Grandma Martha about it."

"Cause she made yours?"

"Exactly. I know you can't even float yet."

His son's eyes got impossibly wide. "I will?"

"I don't know," Clark answered honestly. "You're a lot like me when I was your age, but I couldn't float until I was fourteen."

"That's like forever from now."

"It'll come faster than you think, but, until then, would you like to go flying with me?"

"Can I?"

"Your mom even suggested it," he said standing up and blurring into his uniform, gratified when his son looked up at him with awe. Okay, so he might be just a tad bit petty. Still, it was nice to have Christopher stare at him like that.

"Wow, okay," he said, getting up from the couch and taking Clark's hand. "But don't drop me. I don't want to test if I can get splatted."

Clark blanched. "I'd never do that. Besides," he said as they rose from the ground. "Your mom would find a way to splat me ."

Christopher giggled as they maneuvered out of the window and up through the backyard, as Clark prepared for superspeed. "Mommy's scary sometimes."

Slipping past the city and the clouds faster than a human could see, Clark laughed. "You have no idea."

"Mommy! Mommy!" Christopher called, running into her arms after Clark set him down.

Chloe rolled her eyes indulgently at The Suit until Clark realized how he was dressed and quickly changed into jeans, a t-shirt, and his hideous glasses. Well, at least two out of three things more or less normal wasn't so bad, even if the t-shirt were gray and not a primary color. Would even a little yellow hurt him?

Opening her arms, she gave her son a hug, thankful for the high fence her backyard had. She definitely believed that Dinah and Oliver had scoped out candidates and declared this house the winner specifically for that reason. When it came time for Christopher to practice his superspeed, they'd be more than thankful. "So my boys are back?"

Christopher pushed back and nodded. "Clark flew and we flew and it was soooo neat! I really liked it and it was fun and great and exciting and you have to go!"

Chloe blanched at that thought. She'd never flown with Clark. He'd mastered that ability after she'd married Oliver (or as close as married as a fake certificate with a dead woman's name on it could be), and it had never seemed appropriate, especially considering it was something Superman had done roughly a billion times to save Lois's life. Why her cousin was dumb enough to drool over Superman publicly but keep to a plan of barely knowing Clark at the DP, she'd never know. It would have been better to never have gotten the reputation as Superman's girlfriend. Chloe hoped there was a little more security in being Clark Kent's secret family in Granville than his obvious number one fan in Metropolis proper. They'd have to see.

Still, except for with Stephen Swift, she'd never flown. It had been fun and amazing and, to be honest, she'd considered asking J'onn over the years for a friendly spin to repeat it. The thought of doing it with Clark-not Superman and that stupid outfit she hated, crest and all-but with Clark, which was something her cousin had never done as far as she knew, well that was too good to be true. It wasn't something she got.

"Chlo?" Clark asked, blushing a little, and extending his left hand. "We could always go fast. I can call Bart or J'onn to watch Christopher, no problem. Heck, even Aunt Diana."

Chloe smiled despite herself. The lack of curse word was such a Martha Kentism. "'Heck,' huh?"

"Well I'm serious. If Christopher gets to do it, shouldn't you? You were always on me to learn."

"I think I wanted you to 'get on that one,'" she admitted. Shaking her head and dragging Christopher to the house, Chloe added, "Clark, I think we'll save that for another night."

"But mom! It's the funnest thing ever and it's really cool and he said one day I might be able to do that and we fly faster than airplanes and-"

"I know, sweetheart, but sometimes you need to get prepared for things."

"You're not scared, are you? It's real safe!" he shouted, clomping up the stairs with her.

Chloe sighed and looked back at Clark who was giving her his best puppy-eyed expression. "No, honey, sometimes it's not."

Christopher had bed time by eight pm. It left Chloe, Clark, and the remains of a pepperoni pizza chilling on either side of her sofa. She was also going to send Dinah and Oliver a thank you note for making it so long. It kept people from being thigh to thigh on it. Clark picked up a slice, considered it, and then set it back in the box. He settled instead for pulling off a pepperoni and chewing on it, mouth closed.

"Clark-" she started.

"Chlo?" he asked, after swallowing.

"Look, I have some sentence diagrams to grade and to review the first chapter of The Scarlet Letter for my tenth graders. It's sort of a jammed schedule during the week, you know?"

"Yes, it's a whopping eight fifteen. Chlo, you could have, you know?"

"Gone flying?" she laughed and shook her head. "I think it's a little early in whatever our relationship is for something like that."

"It's not sex!" Clark said, comically putting his hands over his mouth when he realized that Christopher was asleep upstairs and far too young for that type of language.

"No, I guess it's not, but I know when I did it with not-quite-Warrior-Angel that it was at least very intimate. It's like up there with sex as far as trusting you, if you can understand that."

"I do fly people all the time out of the way of chaos and of course with Christopher. Hell, it was your idea."

"Indeed it was but I meant...with Lois ."

He sighed and brought his elbows to his knees. "Are you always going to do that? Compare yourself to Lois? Compare us to me and her?"

"It's hard not to. She's better in some ways-taller, thinner, bigger breasts, better hair, and star reporter on Superman for the DP."

"And she wasn't as smart as you are and she didn't have a Pulitzer or love Clark Kent the way you do."

"I guess there are trade-offs," Chloe quipped.

"I'll take you when you're ready, then. The offer definitely stands. I mean, if I take Christopher when I'm around, I'd hardly be one to say you couldn't or to deny it."

She forced a smile. "Thank you. This is all just so much to get used to so fast. Two weeks ago I was a reporter in Singapore and with a daily life that involved my husband and the consulate frankly. Now I'm a teacher of all things, laying low in Granville and you're back in my life. I...flight or sex or anything intensely intimate...that has to wait."

"I understand," Clark said petulantly.

"You never were good at patience or waiting."

He nodded and patted her knee. "I'll work on it. Promise."

"Me too."


	11. Chapter 11

11

Clark frowned when he opened his door. It was a simple efficiency because he didn't need much space with the time he divided between The Daily Planet , patrolling and night time visits to Chloe's home. He stayed in the apartment overnight, used it for breakfast, but it wasn't anything more than that. George might have gotten Christopher for after school but he got to have dinner and help Chloe grade or plan out the next edition of The Granville High Anchor . Some days, as they discussed editorial or other ideas or helped copy edit the kids, it almost felt like The Torch over twenty years ago.

They'd even come to enough of an accord to agree for all four of them to go trick-or-treating in Clark's building. He'd scoped out the situation in both Granville and here and found out he had more than one neighbor who favored king-sized candy bars. Once that little fact had been disclosed to Christopher, it had been nothing but an insistence on Clark's apartment complex.

Still, Clark wasn't expecting what he saw standing at his door. Clark, himself, at Chloe's insistence and as a bit of an in joke was going as Superman (albeit with a cheap costume from Joe's down the street). He had assumed that his son might be wearing something similar. Instead, he just narrowed his eyes at George, Chloe, and Christopher, each one dressed as a member of the Bat Family. Of course, George was Batman, complete with utility belt, and Chloe was wearing something that was very close to what Barbara now wore. Despite his frustration, that at least amused Clark. Once, before she'd left Star City, Chloe had been training Barbara. She'd have been a new Watchtower of sorts before a Batgirl had Chloe not left and her dad not been relocated to Gotham.

Oh what could have been.

Clark was far less amused to see his son dressed as Robin, bright red outfit and elf-like shoes. His own mini utility belt was really just adding insult to injury.

His son spun around and shook his hands in his gauntlets. "Don't I look good?"

Clark forced himself to smile and pushed the cheap felt cape over his shoulder (God it had nothing on his mother's). "You look very nice, buddy."

George hesitated at the doorway, as if he needed an invitation. "Do you not like the look, Clark?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Oh boys, you're both pretty."

Christopher giggled. "Mommy, boys aren't pretty!"

"Then you're both fine," Chloe replied. "George suggested it and Christopher loves Robin and I had a little help from the costume, advice from a mutual friend."

"Naturally," Clark said. "Alright, then, let's get some Baby Ruths and Snickers ."

Christopher frowned. "Shouldn't we come in first?"

Clark and George looked each other over and answered in unison:

"Not at all."

"You know, Chlo," Clark said as he was standing next to her by the stage in the Granville High gym. "You could have warned me what was going to be happening. I wasn't exactly thrilled to see my son dressed as Bruce's protege."

Chloe smirked and slapped some orange streamers and a paper witch, complete with pointed hat and warts, out of her way. They were suckered (read she was suckered) into chaperoning the Granville High Halloween Dance, which, technically, was more like an All Saint's Day dance as it was Saturday the first. "You're jealous of Bruce now?"

"No," he huffed, tempted to kick at a Jack-O-Lantern. He thought better of it after imagining it going through a wall. That was not really the way to keep a low profile. "It's just a low blow."

"Truly it was my idea and I don't think that Christopher isn't a fan of Superman's. He's five and he loves all of them. He went through a huge Green Arrow phase-as if that wasn't awkward-when George gave him arrows two Christmases ago. I'm sure he thinks you're awesome. I mean, who else takes him for a flight at least once a week."

Clark blushed. "Offer still stands, Chlo."

"And my idea to take it slow, well, it still stands."

Clark nodded but held out his hand. "Then dance with me. I was an ass for not asking at Prom and I wish Jimmy hadn't interrupted us so fast at your wedding."

"Brainiac in my head, I don't remember it anyway. Considering everything Jimmy called me over Facebook after the annulment, I'm pretty glad."

"Then let me make it up to you. It's been a very, very long time since Spring Formal. I, uh, am aware I brushed off my old Zorro outfit."

"You and capes," she snarked, adjusting the mask over her face and, yes, she still looked a lot like Barbara in costume. "You look dashing, and I assume you're going to take out that foil and eventually challenge the P.E. teacher D'Artagnan to a duel."

"I could!"

"You so will," she said, taking his hand and he was grateful she let him lead her out to the center of the floor. "Gracias, masked bandit."

"No problem, Babs," he whispered in her ear, setting his hands on her hips. As chaperons, they couldn't get nearly as close as he wanted, but, before the cliched yet expected "Monster Mash" started up for nostalgia's sake, he leaned in and gave her the kiss he'd been owing her since they were fifteen.

"It must be hard," Clark said, draping a blanket over Chloe as they sat by the fire warming her place. "I mean it was fun to have Christopher last night but it was weird to do the whole Christmas thing without him on actual Christmas day."

"It was also weird for him to get half a toy store from you."

"He did not."

"He got too much."

"I'm sorry. I just...I missed the first four Christmases. I wanted to do something special for the first one I actually was a part of."

She stiffened and sighed. It had always been her call and, as easy a rhythm as they were falling into, she was always going to be responsible for depriving him of those things. It hurt that she'd done that to him, that she'd still caused him so deep a pain when she'd been trying so hard to spare both him and her cousin.

(Incidentally, Lois hadn't sent either of them so much as a Christmas card from Kenya. Chloe wasn't shocked.)

"If I could take that back, I would, a hundred times over."

Clark smiled and kissed her forehead. "I know. Well then I get to spoil him."

"As if his 'cousin' Conner and his Grandma Martha didn't do as much. The Kent family...I swear, you all are all alike."

"Maybe a little," Clark said, sighing. "I really haven't spent that much time with Conner. I mean, I helped him if he had powers problems. I saw him if we did joint missions with The Titans. I did all of that, but I wasn't really there for him. I let mom handle it, just shoved him off on her."

"To focus on Lois?"

"No, you one-track mind, you. I did it to focus on Superman. I didn't...I wasn't ready to have a younger brother, for lack of a better term to describe Conner. I didn't want the entanglements."

"You seemed better at Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve."

"I think Christopher's gotten me back in touch with my nurturing side, you know?"

Chloe nodded. "Not a bad thing. Clark, on the note of 'thanks for the gifts,' the diamond pendant was a little much."

He shrugged. "Heart necklaces are good luck and I made the diamonds."

"That takes the gleam off," she replied.

"Well, the gold I paid for," he riposted. "Oh and all the plaid and flannel were nice."

"That's just to get you out of your monochrome and gray depressing phase. I mean, some of it's green and not all primary colors. I don't want you blowing your cover or anything. I had something else, but you have to take me to your old farm."

Clark frowned. "The one on Hickory Lane?"

"Yes," she said, feeling her heart speed up. "I hope you like it and it's your farm."

"Hasn't been in almost nine years."

"Just take me away on the Smallville Shuttle, please." And with that, he grabbed her and sped her off to the place everything with them had started.

When they got there, Chloe got down from his arms and walked up the front steps, pointing to the large red bow on it. "Surprise!" Clark didn't move, didn't breathe and for a minute, Chloe thought she'd messed up. "Clark?"

"I don't understand," he said, passing up the stairs and touching the front door, almost as if he didn't believe he was standing there. "Someone else bought this. I mean, you can't just put a bow on someone's house!"

"I didn't. I put a bow on your door. Oliver still had some residual guilt about hiding Christopher from you too. We offered the owners four times the market value for them to sell it back to us. Well just sell it so you could have it. Oliver is going to sign the deed over to you tomorrow."

"I...Why?"

She wanted to thunk him in the back of his head. "Because it's your home, because it was your family's home for four generations and I want it to be Christopher's too. I...you haven't been yourself since you sold it. I don't care what Brainiac Five saw. I don't care what the helmet saw. I...Dr. Fate knew how to use it and he said he couldn't see yours end and he said we had the same Fate. Well Dr. Fate couldn't see how he was supposed to be either. Maybe all that crap that was supposed to happen was bullshit. The biggest bunch of bullshit is that you gave up the farm. As long as I've known you, not fucking Superman, not the Blur but you , this has been the place you love the most." Stepping up on tip toe, she cupped his chin. "Was I wrong?"

Clark shook his head. "I...Being upset about Jon...my dad. I was able to fly when I embraced Jor-El. That vision of my dad said so!"

"Maybe it was just because you stopped fighting being two people at once, I don't know, but you haven't done yourself a damn bit of good in almost a decade being Kal-El or The Blur or Superman 24/7. You're finally embracing your mom and Conner again, and you have a life with me and Christopher, a human life. You deserve a real home."

"I have an apartment," he countered.

"You have a bed and you spend most of your time with me at my place when you're not saving the world or making a salary. Clark, please, what do you really want?" Clark stepped back and turned around so that he could see the expanse of the fields in front of him and Chloe's heart sank. "You can't possibly hate your surprise, can you?"

He shook his head and took her hand in his. "No, I...I'm overwhelmed. I want this but I didn't think I could have it, that I should have it. The farm, this life with you and Christopher. I don't even know how I denied myself all of this for almost a decade."

Chloe nodded and pulled him by the arm to the barn, up the stairs to the loft. She smirked up at him, before kissing his lips. "I thought that we could get that out of the way so we could be lovers."

"Chlo?"

She spun around, arms outstretched, and made her way to the open windows of the loft, as she had so many years ago when she'd unveiled her new job at The Star City Registerto Clark. It was different, so dusty, and actually had hay instead of furniture, but it was where every moment-good or bad-of import in their life had happened, almost.

"We're home. This is your home, and our son's real home. Please say yes and forgive yourself for real, for Jonathan and for everything."

"It's my fault he died. If I'd never been to Metropolis, if he hadn't had my powers-"

"If you hadn't been there the day of the first shower to help get them out of the car, do you think they'd have lived? If you hadn't saved your dad from Greg Arkin's attack or a lot of people from Sean Kelvin or everyone during the Nicodemus flower, do you think he'd be around then? What about when you proved he hadn't killed anyone? Clark, his life probably wouldn't have gone anywhere after Homecoming of '89 without you. You can't hate yourself forever over it." She stood up as tall as she could, which, granted, wasn't very tall, and looked up at him. "I won't let you."

He stepped toward her and wrapped his arms around her waist as he had at the Halloween dance but this time they were so much closer than they'd been then, closer than was probably polite.

"So you won't let me? Won't let Superman do something?" he asked and she could tell his tone was light. This was the boy who'd never outgrow her, except vertically.

She shook her head and kissed him again. "I won't like Clark give his life up, his real, human life. It wasn't your fault. Jor-El set you up."

Clark nodded and kissed her and, for a long time, he didn't move from that position, his head cradled on her shoulder as he let out large sobs. "I know." Was all he was able to get out.

Eventually, she stopped stroking his hair and pushed up his head (or he let her, same difference). "I forgive you. Your mom forgives you. Hell, your dad would if he were actually around and not whatever weird thing you saw the day you didn't get married. Clark, will you take the house, please?"

"Yes," he replied, running his hand over the windowsill and she wondered if he was remembering all those years ago, back when he was still a kid and his dad had unveiled the loft to him.

"I...well I had one last thing and this one I actually could pay for myself," Chloe said, moving to a dark corner and pulling off a sheet. The telescope underneath was an antique she'd found in Edge City, something larger and made of brass, maybe turn of the century. "I know Lana's not next door anymore-"

"Chlo!"

"I know that, but I wanted you and Christopher to share this, when the time comes. I know the star's gone; I'm not stupid, but for both of you. You can just take him on stupid fishing trips til it's time."

"Fishing isn't stupid," Clark replied, bringing a hand to his chest in feigned shock.

"Uh-huh and you fall asleep every time. Clark, so what do you say?"

He nodded and blurred over to her. She didn't startle, that had been worked out of her by sophomore year of college. Leaning down, he kissed her again and she suddenly found her feet no longer touching the floor. "Fly with me, Chloe, and then I'll give you something else for Christmas. I don't think I can top 'humanity,' but I have something I should have given you more considerately before."

She shuddered as he pushed his hips into hers a little. "Clark-"

As he slid out the window with her and out to the stars, he grinned and kissed her cheek. "Chloe, I love you and I just hope that I'm worth the wait."

With that, they slipped out into the night, their home behind them.


End file.
